Background:
Social support has an important role to prevent traumatic stress connected with performing a nurse profession. The aim of the study was to measure the relationship between compassion fatigue and perceived social support in polish nurses.
Methods:
The study was conducted in a group of 862 professionally active nurses in Poland using the CAWI method (Computer-Assisted Web Interview). Professional Quality of Life scale (ProQOL) and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) were used for collecting the data.StatSoft, Inc. (2014)was used for data analysis. For comparisons between the groups: Mann-Whitney U test, ANOVA Kruskal Wallis test, multiple comparisons (post-hoc). Relationships between variables were tested using the Spearman's R test, Tau Kendall's test and chi 2 test. The level of significance in all calculations was assumed p <0.05.
Results:
The research showed the presence of Compassion Satisfaction, Compassion Fatigue and Burnout in the group of Polish hospital nurses. A higher level of perceived social support was associated with a lower level of compassion fatigue (r=-0,35; p<0,001). A higher level of social support was associated with higher job satisfaction (r = 0.40; p <0.001). The study also found that a higher level of social support was associated with a lower risk of Burnout (r = -0.41; p <0.001).
Conclusions:
Preventing of Compassion fatigue and Burnout should be a priority for health care managers. It is worth noting that an important predictor of Compassion Fatigue is the fact that Polish nurses often work overtime. It is necessary to pay more attention to the key role of Social Support in preventing CF and BO.