Abstract:
The present study puts stress on the prevalence of compassion fatigue in special
school educators and how gender plays a role in it. Compassion fatigue
phenomenon is a relatively new idea and not many studies have been conducted
on various populations with different variables to prove its prevalence and effects
among helping profession experts. This study provided grounds to establish the
prevalence of compassion fatigue in Pakistan. The hypotheses of the study
“Special School Educators will have higher Compassion fatigue on Professional
Quality of Life: Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress (ProQOL) scale” and
“Female Special School Educators will have higher Compassion Fatigue
Professional Quality of Life: Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout and Emotional
Exhaustion Scale than male Special School Educators”. A sample size of 176
special school educators among the age range of 25-45 was selected teaching at
multiple special needs schools, inclusive schools or giving one-on-one sessions to
special needs children. Data was collected through survey based study from
online data entries and focus groups conducted for special educators. The findings
support the hypotheses of the given research. Results obtained were analyzed
using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences using t test and Cronbach’s
Alpha to test the statistical significance of the relationship of the variables. The
results concluded that special school educators have high compassion fatigue
(t=5.51, p>.05) as well as female special school educators scored high
compassion fatigue (t=5.62, p>.05). The Cronbach’s Alpha (a>0.9) of Secondary
stress scale, Burnout and Compassion fatigue shows excellent internal
consistency.
