Compassion fatigue: are you at risk?

Vol. 36, No. 1, January 2009 • Oncology Nursing Forum E .P., a 34-year-old oncology staff nurse, felt like she was losing control of her life. She felt a sense of dread and fatigue each morning when her alarm went off. How could she make it through one more day trying to balance her family life, her job, and caring for her mother, whose senile dementia was gradually worsening every day? E.P. could not really remember the last time she felt energetic and positive, nor could she pinpoint when she began to feel so overwhelmed. E.P. had been married for 13 years to her college sweetheart. He was in sales and worked out of the home, which, she felt, often added to the chaos of their lives. Their children came soon after marriage and were now embarking on adolescence—a daughter, 12, and a son, 10. The children seemed to fight continuously for inconsequential reasons, and her daughter was beginning to challenge E.P. in every arena: clothes, music, friends, homework, and curfew. E.P.’s husband played a passive role in their childrearing, and E.P. often did not feel supported when she attempted to set guidelines or expectations for the children. Caring for her mother was adding additional stress and her only sibling lived out of state and was not available to assist her in handling the physical, emotional, or financial aspects of their mother’s care. E.P. had studied nursing in college and began working immediately after graduation. She worked in general medicalsurgical units initially; looking back, she remembered being enthusiastic and eager to go to work every day. Nursing was not just a job for her. E.P. felt that nursing was a profession and, at one time, she had hoped to further her education and become a nurse practitioner. She did not plan to become an oncology nurse but worked the float pool for several months and soon found that her work with patients with cancer and their families was rewarding. E.P. enjoyed the challenges of working in a specialty area, learning new skills, and felt that the environment reinforced the ideals that made her enter the profession in the first place: empathy, Compassion Fatigue: Are You at Risk?