Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“We Make Death Look Pretty”: A Qualitative Study Analyzing Reported Effects Of Compassion Fatigue On Hospice Nurse-Patient Communication, Katherine Harville

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Rationale: Compassion fatigue is present in multiple nursing fields, but hospice poses a significant threat to nurses working within that specific environment. This is due to their consistent proximity with patient suffering, death and dying, and constant communication with patients regarding their death. The hospice nurse-patient relationship requires a deeper connection between nurse and patient which often results in consistent emotional labor for hospice nurses, further amplifying the threat of compassion fatigue. While the effects of compassion fatigue can manifest in many forms, it is typically characterized by a nurses’ decline in job satisfaction, which they do not tend to …