In the early days of the pandemic, Dr. Melissa Bolton, a clinical psychologist at the Brockville Mental Health Centre, was approached by a few colleagues who sought her advice. They asked her how to recognize the signs of burnout, how to manage self-care during such a challenging time, and what types of mental health support was available.
The pandemic didn’t wane, and more co-workers came knocking with similar questions and concerns. In response to the growing need, Bolton developed a workshop tailored to the expressed concerns about compassion fatigue, which has now been attended by over 90 health care professionals at The Royal and will be offered to the entire corporation in a virtual presentation in the fall 2022.
Compassion fatigue refers to the negative emotions that individuals may feel in their capacity for helping others. Bolton says it’s often referred to as the “the potential cost of caring.”
“We are treating and working with individuals who are in extreme emotional distress and pain,” she says. “With that comes a lot of responsibility and heaviness, which could lead to compassion fatigue.”
As with many helping professions, Bolton says health care professionals essentially make a career that requires them to give much of themselves, of their time, of their energy.
“When we choose to be a helping professional, we are essentially the tool with which we work,” says Bolton. “We have to make sure that our core is strong in order to be of service to others.”
Compassion fatigue can be an aspect of occupational burnout, which is characterized by emotional exhaustion, indifference, and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment. Not only does burnout impact the individual who is experiencing it, but it’s linked to poor client satisfaction and safety as well. Burnout can have huge implications for health care organizations, the health care system, and even the economy.
Unfortunately, the pandemic just added to the cloud of stress and fatigue that health care providers were already under.
“It's completely uncharted territory, this feeling of helplessness,” describes Bolton. “There is a collective exhaustion – and that weighs on health care providers. We're trying our best to continue the same continuity of care, the same calibre of care, and I think more than ever we need to have increased empathy with ourselves, with our colleagues, and with the fact that we're all trying our best to work through this.”
Compassion fatigue can be an aspect of occupational burnout, which is characterized by emotional exhaustion, indifference, and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment.
Bolton’s original workshop was created for frontline nursing staff to help them identify compassion fatigue, provide a safe space to talk about their experiences, and pass on tools and resources.
The workshops were small at first, with only four or five people in attendance, and then they grew into presentations to larger groups, and not just nurses, but social workers, occupational therapists, outpatient teams, recreational therapists, and leadership teams.
Bolton also wrote a manual for staff to help them track their own wellness, which contains practical strategies as well as cognitive strategies to support their mental health.
Bolton says there’s a pressing need to have the conversation about compassion fatigue and burnout and that it’s best done early in one’s career. As such, she now delivers her workshops to all new nursing staff, new members of the Allied Health team, and incoming students.
“Research has shown that if you actually have these discussions and awareness before somebody comes into the field, it can create that sense of psychological hardiness and make people more resilient – it’s a buffer towards developing these types of concerns,” says Bolton.
Outside of her workshops, Bolton is happy to connect fellow staff members to existing resources and provide peer support.
“We have to make sure kindness is driving everything that we do because we're all in this together. We need to be treating ourselves – and each other – with kindness.”