Relationship between self-care and quality of Life among medical practitioners

Abstract

Compassion fatigue among medical practitioners has gained interest over the past decade. Professional caregivers in general are exposed to the risk of compassion fatigue (CF), burnout (BO) and low levels of compassion satisfaction (CS) and mostly professional self-care is ignored. The objectives of this study were to assess the prevalence and severity of CF among medical doctors, evaluating the correlations between CF, BO and CS and their relations with professional self-care (Figley, 2002). The objective of the study was to explore the relationship between psychological distress, compassion fatigue, burnout, compassion satisfaction and personal self-care of medical health care professionals. Compassion fatigue (CF), burnout (BO) and compassion satisfaction (CS) was measured by professional quality of life scale developed by Stamm (2005) and professional self-care scale (Dorociak, Rupert, Bryant & Zahniser, 2017) was used to assess professional self-care of health physicians. Sample was consist of 111 medical doctors in which 45% (n=50) was female doctors and 55% (n=61) was male doctors. Results indicated that compassion satisfaction was significantly negatively correlated with burn out and secondary trauma subscales of professional quality of life scale and compassion satisfaction is significantly positively correlated with professional support, professional development, life balance and cognitive strategies subscales of professional self-care. This study proposed creation of a CF educational and early intervention treatment program and enhance their professional quality of self-care for health care professionals. Such programs would train facilitators of physician well-being and resiliency building. We also recommend analysing contributing variables and organizational factors related to higher CF. Policy recommendations include integrating such programs within required risk management continuing medical education.