Managing Compassion Fatigue in Intensive Care Unit Nurses

Background Compassion fatigue is the accumulation of negative feelings from long-term exposure to human suffering, which leads to emotional, physical, and spiritual exhaustion. Intensive care unit nurses are especially prone to this due to the unique stressors of their work environment, such as high patient mortality and caring for medically unstable patients. There is currently a gap in literature appraising the effectiveness of interventions that help manage compassion fatigue in intensive care unit nurses. Objectives This systematic review evaluates the efficacy of compassion fatigue interventions for intensive care unit nurses. Methods This systematic review was conducted following guidelines from the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement. Literature published between 2005 and 2024 was obtained from Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and PsycINFO databases. Studies were included if they met the following inclusion criteria: quantitative study design, involved an intervention to prevent or manage compassion fatigue, evaluation of compassion fatigue or one of its components (burnout and secondary traumatic stress), an intervention involving intensive care unit nurses, and articles published in the English language. These data were appraised by 2 independent reviewers using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal tool. Results A total of 17 studies were included. This review found moderate and high strength of evidence for interventions to reduce compassion fatigue in intensive care unit nurses. The most effective interventions were mind-body interventions that were accessible, portable, brief, and adaptable to nurses’ work settings. Discussion This review has several limitations. Many studies included in this review had small sample sizes, were conducted at 1 hospital setting or unit, and used weak study designs. Several studies also used different interventions and measurement approaches, making it difficult to compare and synthesize findings and outcomes. Thus, the heterogeneity of studies limited our ability to draw strong conclusions about different types of interventions. Additional and more rigorous studies examining interventions to decrease and manage compassion fatigue in intensive care unit nurses are needed. There is also a need to foster better generalizability of research findings.