Currently, the private sector has the largest impact on interventions combating compassion fatigue in nurses. This is likely due to the fact that there are no statewide benefits mandated by the public sector that are available for all nurses to partake. As our healthcare system copes with the massive COVID-19 pandemic, resources to decrease compassion fatigue are as vital as ever.
Let’s start with the hospital systems employing the majority to nurses in Arizona. While each hospital system functions slightly differently due to individual policies and procedures, many hospitals offer robust benefits for employees to combat compassion fatigue. These benefits may include mental health services through the insurance carrier or through an employee assistance program, interdisciplinary rounds to discuss the emotional impact of patient care, or pet therapy for employees, among others. Individual patient units may have something in place, like a compassion fatigue committee or social outings for staff nurses. These benefits are easily accessible by nurses employed at that facility, but do not benefit nurses statewide. The lack of continuity across hospital systems is a disservice to nurses, especially those who change jobs and lose access to benefits.
Mental health professionals who are self-employed or employed in the private sector can have an enormous impact on nurses and compassion fatigue. Since most hospital systems offer private health insurance, mental health services generally fall under the private sector for nurses. Gaining access to a counselor with experience in compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and burnout can be challenging if nurses do not know how to navigate the mental health system. Psychology Today (2020) plays a wonderful role in helping people find the right fit with a counselor by providing more information about providers in the area.
Headspace (2020) is a company that offers an app dedicated to mindfulness and meditation. They partner with hospital systems to offer free access to their comprehensive app services for staff members, including nurses, to participate in mindfulness exercises. Just this week, Headspace started offering free memberships to all US healthcare professionals through 2020 to help alleviate the stress that the entire healthcare system in the United States is experiencing with COVID-19.
Individual restaurants are offering free food services for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. While this is certainly not a state-wide benefit, the social support from these restaurants is uplifting for nurses, especially as they cope with changes in childcare, schooling, and increased demand of their presence at work. As we move through this crisis as a community, a state, a nation, and worldwide, the way we treat each other will be our legacy.
References
Headspace. (2020). Mindfulness for your everyday life. Retrieved from https://www.headspace.com/
Psychology Today. (2020). Find a therapist. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us
Nurses and Compassion Fatigue 
Thank you for discussing the private sectors role in compassion fatigue and mental health for nurses. Your discussion that private sectors currently have the greatest impact in combatting compassion fatigue among nurses was surprising. Although hospitals and healthcare organizations provide mental health services for nurses, I agree with your discussion that it is in a siloed manner and not accessible to all nurses. The current pandemic is bringing to my attention how vastly siloed healthcare truly is across the nation. The magnitude of variation among protocols is alarming. I perhaps rather naively assumed there was more national healthcare coordination than is being displayed currently. Do the states that have nursing unions offer more statewide mental health services and resources for all nurses? I would be curious if perhaps those states had lower compassion fatigue rates than states without a union.
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Thank you for your thoughtful post. I found it very surprising that you noted that the private sector has the largest impact on interventions to combat compassion fatigue. Healthcare providers are critical in our society, so it is quite saddening to see that the effort we put in to care for others is not reciprocated. You note that individual hospital systems often provide services to combat compassion fatigue. For the first five years of my career I worked in an inpatient hospital setting, and this was certainly the case. We were frequently offered mental health days, had therapists on site if we need to talk things through, or had social gatherings to distract us from work. For the last few years, however, I have worked in an outpatient oncology center and those same resources are not readily available. There are no nurse gatherings, no social support services, and no emails sent about resources. As an oncology nurse we are frequently encountering suffering and death, which can take an emotional toll. Having public sector support would ensure that healthcare providers in all settings, whether it be inpatient or outpatient, have the resources that they need to continue to do their job effectively.
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I would think that the problem that medical professionals continue to experience with addressing compassion fatigue is the same for mental health in general, the subject continues to have a taboo status regardless of the headway made in addressing it. While not representative of all health care providers, Grabl (2018) notes, this exact issue amongst physicians regarding workloads affecting mental health and acknowledges the taboo aspect of mental health. And in reality, it is more than just a health professional problem, in that it is exclusive to bedside care personnel, it is a problem for administrative staff from a staffing and management perspective. I know my employer offers an employee assistance program that addresses many issues people may face on a daily basis, of which most falls outside of regular medical coverage. The goal of such a program is to help problem solve and offer relevant resources in order to help the employee stay healthy and productive. Admittedly, I have not used or explored what options this program offers in full, partly due to lack of advertisement. Also, I would have a hard time admitting needing to use such a program too. However, in general, I think access to mental health services, or even intermediary services that may connect to full mental health services, needs to be standard for those in the healthcare field, whether a person is in a major system or small family practice, within the context of this post.
References:
Grabl, L. (2018). Physician workloads dropping as mental health concerns rise. Ophthalmology Times, 43(14), 45.
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As a fellow nurse, thank you for writing your blog about fatigue in nurses. You had a really good blog post related to the influence of the private sector, and it ties in with the current COVID-19 pandemic. I hadn’t realized before your post that nurses dealing with compassion fatigue, trauma or burnout may require specialized counselors. I read an interesting study Compassion Fatigue in Nurses: A Metasynthesis (2017) that found that compassion fatigue is a concept that represents a basic inability to nurture others. The article states that healthcare resources are stretched thin across the globe with constant failing numbers of healthcare workers receiving the care they need. Your blog post mentions that hospitals offer benefits to help combat compassion fatigue, my hope is that following this pandemic frontline healthcare workers receive counseling if necessary. Dealing with the scare, vast reported deaths and overall instability of the healthcare field during this national crisis will take some healing. My hospital recently offered the mindfulness application and although I personally haven’t tried meditation there are healthcare providers who have reported the mindfulness exercises helped.
References:
Nolte, A., Downing, C., Temane, A., & Tolsma, M. (2017). Compassion fatigue in nurses: A metasynthesis. Department of Nursing Science. 26, 4364-4378. http://10.1111/jocn.13766
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