Compassion Fatigue in special school Educators

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.