Effects of Secondary Traumatic Stress & Resilience on the Indicators of Compassion Fatigue Among OTPs

Compassion fatigue (CF) has been described as the ‘cost of caring’ for traumatized individuals. Although multiple studies exist on nurses, psychologists, physicians, and other caring professionals, occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) have been largely overlooked. The purpose of this quantitative, cross-sectional survey design using a multiple regression analysis was to explore the relationship between secondary traumatic stress (STS) and resilience (RES) on the indicators of CF, burnout (BO) and compassion satisfaction (CS), in OTPs. The research question for this study was: Are the variables STS and RES correlated with BO and CS as indicators of CF among OTPs? A nonprobability purposive sample for this online opt-in survey was gathered using CommunOT. Participants for the study were currently working as occupational therapists or occupational therapy assistants who responded to the survey, accepted the informed consent that included risks, time commitment, and privacy assurances, and completed the survey. Of the 75 participants, 68 completed the survey. The survey used for this study was created in Qualtrics 9.22 using the Professional Quality of Life 5 (ProQOL 5) and the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). Data regarding participant demographics were also collected using standard questions from Qualtrics. Findings from this study suggest STS and RES impact BO (p < .001), RES impacts CS (p < .001), and STS impacts CS (p=.028) (using one tail), suggesting that both STS and RES correlate with BO and CS in OTPs. The insight gained from this study can benefit OTPs, their employers, and their clients by providing information that can lead to better prevention and treatment of CF and its associated adverse outcomes, including missed workdays, reduced work satisfaction, therapist turnover, poor quality of life, diminished client care, and increased medical costs.

References

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Huang, Y. H., Kim, H., Le, M., Martinez, J., Martin, J., Maghen, E., & Leisek, W. (2019). Predictors and risk factors of compassion satisfaction, burnout, and compassion fatigue among OTs. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 73(4_Supplement_1). https://doi.org/ajot.2019.73S1-PO6010

Kyriazos, T., Galanakis, M., Katsiana, A., Saprikis, V., Tsiamitros, D., & Stalikas, A. (2021). Are resilient occupational therapists at low risk of burnout? A structural 75 equation modeling approach combined with latent profile analysis in a Greek sample. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 9(6), 133–153. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2021.96012

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