Date of Conferral
2022
Degree
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
School
Nursing
Advisor
Dr. Andrea A. Jennings-Sanders
Abstract
Health care professionals, such as mental health nurses, use the two essential tenets of compassion and empathy when caring for their patients. But constant exposure to traumatized patients under a nurse’s care can lead to burnout and compassion fatigue (CF), which affects the nurse’s provision of adequate patient care. Mental health nurses’ lack of education and awareness on CF has led to diminished provision of safe, effective, and quality care to their patients. Therefore, the purpose of this scholarly doctoral of nursing project was to develop an educational tool kit that might help mental health nurses combat CF within their practice settings. The human caring theory was used as a guide to help improve a nurse’s empathy, compassion, and communication skills. Information used in creating the educational tool kit was derived from several evidence-based studies. Six nursing experts evaluated the educational tool kit and determined that it may be useful to increase knowledge of CF among mental health nurses. The six nursing experts (100%) strongly agreed that the tool kit content was clear, easy to understand, and recommendable. All six-nursing expert’s strongly agreed the tool kit content is important for education and may increase knowledge of CF. Regarding meeting practice guidelines and expression of compassion satisfaction, five nursing experts (83.34%) strongly agreed with this, one nurse expert (16.66%) agreed, and another was neutral (16.66%). The tool kit may impact social change by providing ways for nurses to identify CF and plan interventions to combat CF, improving practice, quality of patient care, and societal health and wellness.
Recommended Citation
Enakhena, Cleopatra, "Educational Tool Kit for Mental Health Nurses to Combat Compassion Fatigue" (2022). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 13336.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/13336
