Personal Wellness Inventory and Reflection, Essay Example

What draws most people into nursing is to be supportive of people’s health needs, yet this ironically is also what can cause nurses to incur compassion fatigue. More specifically, nurses who care for terminal patients usually suffer from this syndrome (Lombardo, 2011). Compassionate nurses exhibit  both a strong desire to alleviate the pain of their patients and feelings of sympathy. Most of what lies beneath the surface makes up what kind of person someone is. The process towards emotional maturity calls for an individual to look inside what is really in their heart and reflect, which requires him or her to step out of their comfort zone so that they can confront what is really unpleasant in life. This process is a painful one because it forces people to expose themselves before God. In the nursing profession, emotional intelligence is critical, and it refers to the ability of nurses to perceive, evaluate, and manage both a person’s own self as well as those of the patients. My compassion score came out pretty high at thirty nine; burn out twenty seven; and secondary scored twenty. From these results, it is apparent that I am not experiencing compassion fatigue or burnout yet as a caregiver.  The structure and assumptions behind this assessment  are focused on the intrinsic link between emotional maturity and spiritual health, which enhances a nurse’s ability to provide high-quality care.  Although the tests scores indicate that my compassionate caring is optimal, preventative measure are necessary in order to avoid getting compassion fatigue and/or burnout in the future.

Stress is a physical, emotional or mental reaction to events that can foment mental or body tension, which is directly linked to human health overall and can have adverse ramifications. Emotional health enhances spiritual maturity, which ultimately helps an individual avoid compassion burnout and fatigue. Nurses who care for terminally-ill patients or patients undergoing life-altering conditions become overwhelmed from the quotidian exposure to trauma. As such, a plan to combat compassion fatigue and burnout is critical so that patient care remains high-quality. Once a nurse recognizes that he or she is moving towards compassion fatigue or burnout, various changes need to be implemented in order to effectively combat it. Changes should first focus on nurses taking care of themselves and talking to friends, family, or other peers to balance out work life and the responsibilities required of nursing with their personal life. Physical health is of paramount importance, so nurses need to make sure they eat healthy, get ample sleep every night, and exercise regularly to relieve work stress. Most importantly, nurses need to be cognizant of their limitations and realize that nurses cannot alleviate the suffering of all of their patients. To fully combat fatigue and burnout, on-site interventions in the workplace can help enhance the emotional health of nurses and function an effective preventative tool.

It is unequivocal that pinpointing signs of compassion fatigue by taking needed steps to treat and prevent it can cultivate resiliency in nurses, which will making the nursing profession far more rewarding. Moreover, patients will receive better care demarked by compassion. The management of compassion fatigue needs to be multidimensional and include prevention, evaluation, and subsequent minimization. Proactively acknowledging the presence of compassion fatigue and burnout is central to any plan to combat it and to maintain emotional and spiritual health. It is ironic that the nursing profession is predicated on the desire to give to others through healthcare, but the constant absorption of trauma renders it difficult for nurses to nurture themselves.

References

Boyle, D. (2011). Countering compassion fatigue: A requisite nursing agenda. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 16(1).

Lombardo, B. & Eyre, C. (2011) Compassion fatigue: A nurse’s primer. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 16(1).