The relationship between compassion fatigue and workplace psychological violence, alexithymia, and empathy among clinical nurses / 中国职业医学

ABSTRACT

Objective: To study the relationship between compassion fatigue and workplace psychological violence, alexithymia, and empathy in clinical nurses. Methods: A total of 1 159 clinical nurses from 10 cities in Henan and Fujian Provinces were enrolled using the method of grabbing random balls. Questionnaires including Workplace Psychologically Violent Behaviors Instrument, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Jefferson Scale of Empathy Health Professionals, Professional Quality of Life Scale were used to investigate the status of workplace psychological violence, alexithymia, empathy, and compassion fatigue in participants. Bootstrap analysis was used to analyze the relationship between workplace psychological violence, alexithymia, empathy, and compassion fatigue scores. Results: The average score for workplace psychological violence among clinical nurses was (26.2±6.5), with 405 nurses (34.9%) having experienced workplace psychological violence. The scores for alexithymia, empathy and compassion fatigue were (58.3±12.3), (104.3±18.6) and (48.5±6.7) respectively. Mild compassion fatigue was detected in 34.9% of participants, while moderate to severe compassion fatigue accounted for 48.8%. Bootstrap test result showed that workplace psychological violence had a positive impact on compassion fatigue ［standardized effect value (β)=0.40, 95% confidence interval(CI)： 0.35-0.44］. Workplace psychological violence had separate mediating effects through alexithymia (β=0.15, 95%CI： 0.10-0.19), empathy (β=0.16, 95%CI： 0.10-0.21) , and a chain mediating effect through alexithymia and empathy on compassion fatigue (β=0.06, 95%CI： 0.03-0.09). Conclusion: Compassion fatigue symptoms are relatively common among clinical nurses. Experiencing workplace psychological violence directly affects compassion fatigue and can indirectly affect it through the mediating effects of alexithymia and empathy.