Abstract

BARBOSA, Silvânia da Cruz; SOUZA, Sandra  and  MOREIRA, Jansen Souza. Compassion fatigue as a professional quality of life hazard for hospital service workers. Rev. Psicol., Organ. Trab. [online]. 2014, vol.14, n.3, pp. 315-323. ISSN 1984-6657.

Specifically, in studies concerning care professionals, Professional Quality of Life (PQL) refers to how much the individual feels good by helping to diminish the suffering of others. This sensation results in the psychological balance between the job's positive (Compassion Satisfaction) and negative (Compassion Fatigue) experiences. The objective of this research is to evaluate the professional quality of life of a sample of health care professionals that work in public hospitals in João Pessoa and Campina Grande (PB). We used as instruments: the Professional Quality of Life Scale - ProQOL - IV (validated in a local study) and a Socio-Demographic Questionnaire. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program, from which we obtained descriptive statistics (average, percentage, and standard deviation), and cluster analysis. Results identified three PQL profiles: Balanced, Deficient, and Moderate. The first and last profiles have their PQL preserved; in contrast, the Deficient profile group stood out as the most worrisome, since it was the only one to present evidence of Compassion Fatigue, probably due to their excessive workload. Since Compassion Satisfaction was dominant in every group, and Compassion Fatigue affected only 25 percent of the sample, we can conclude that most health care professionals have a good professional quality of life, and this quality is sustained by the pleasure of feeling socially useful when saving lives.

Keywords : Professional Quality of Life; compassion satisfaction; compassion fatigue.

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