Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Relationship Between Exercise And Compassion Fatigue In Nurses, Cynthia Harrill Yeargin

Nursing Theses and Capstone Projects

Nurses in today’s healthcare arena face numerous challenges and demands from the organization, personally, professionally, and their patients. These pressures can culminate into the development of compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue (CF) has been defined as a combination of physical, emotional, and spiritual depletion associated with caring for patients. Compassion fatigue is linked to increased turnover, decreased teammate engagement, and poor clinical performance. The purpose of this thesis was to assess the prevalence of CF among nurses, and to determine if a relationship exists between CF and amount exercised each week. The organizing framework was based on Kolcaba’s Theory of Comfort. …