CN36 ‘Compassion Fatigue Resiliency Program’ as an empowerment program for oncology-hematology nurses: A university hospital experience

Compassion Fatigue Resiliency Program provides nurses with knowledge and skills that will increase their level of resilience by helping them recognize compassion fatigue, cope with its consequences, and work effectively. We conduct program with oncology-hematology nurses with two aims (1) to compare its impact on their professional quality of life, perceived stress and resilience (2) to empower our nurses. One-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study design was used. The sample comprised 47 oncology-hematology nurses working in a private university hospital. The 'Compassion Fatigue Resiliency Program' was implemented as an intervention. Measurements were performed pre- and post intervention. Tools a personal information form, The Resilience Scale for Adults, The Perceived Stress Scale, and The Professional Quality of Life Scale-IV was used to collect the data. Daya was analyzed using descriptive statistics and paired sample t-test. In the study, 95.7% (n: 45) of the nurses are women, 87.2% (n: 41) are single, 91.5% (n: 43) have bachelor's degree, and the mean age was 24.87. The majority (70.2%, n: 33) of nurses work day-night shift, and 46.8% (n: 22) work in oncology-hematology inpatient unit. 83% (n: 39) stated that they chose the career voluntarily, 91.5% (n: 43) are willing to work in oncology, and 68.1% (n: 32) found the level of received social support enough. The average years of total working at oncology was 1.08, the average weekly working hours was 48.97, and the average daily working hours was 11.25. After intervention, the mean compassion fatigue (15,31±7,99), burnout (20,40±6,53), and perceived stress (17,40±6,11) scores of nurses decreased, the mean resilience (138,44±16,82) scores increased statistically significantly compared to the before (respectively 17,25±7,87; 23,29±6,59; 19,63±6,28; 135,02±16,00) (p <.05). No statistically significant difference was found between the mean scores of compassion satisfaction of nurses before and after intervention. In this study, it was determined that the training program was effective on nurses' compassion fatigue, burnout, perceived stress, and resilience.