Compassion fatigue is a form of burnout which results in physical and emotional exhaustion and is characteristic for health care workers (Day & Anderson, 2011), especially for caregivers. This medical term was developed by Figley and can also be called as secondary traumatic stress or secondary traumatic disorder (Day & Anderson).
It includes five major concepts and they are: physical and emotional exhaustion, apathy, depression, and impaired judgement (Espeland, 2006). Warning signs of these concepts are the following: a person often experiences headaches, hypertension, and is often irritated, has a feeling of hopelessness and problems with the sleep. While having compassion fatigue caregivers are often depressed, feel anger and are anxious, they have changes in their eating habits, eat a lot of food, and abuse drugs or alcohol (Florida Center for Public Health Preparedness, 2004) to hide their feelings (Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project, 2012). Caregivers may also have problems with their gastrointestinal tracts and they often become sick, they stop to take care of their look and do not always follow hygiene regulations (Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project). Caregivers can behave compulsively, they may have sexual addictions, can gamble, and spend a lot of money on some unimportant things (Florida Center for Public Health Preparedness). Not less significant warning sign of compassion fatigue is that caregivers begin to feel less happy and joyful (Florida Center for Public Health Preparedness), it is hard for them to concentrate and they do not get pleasure from doing their job (Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project).
Nowadays health care workers have to take care of more patients and do more paperwork. Their job is very demanding, and it is not surprising that many caregivers experience compassion fatigue (Pfifferling, 2000). This problem can arise when caregivers take care of people, who are going to die, support those who were raped, counsel teenagers in their educational environments, and support families who lost their loved ones (Marchand, 2009).
Patients have physical, emotional, and spiritual needs and, surely, caregivers also have them. Caregivers can seriously damage their health by not sleeping enough and leading a stressful way of life. To maintain good health one should eat healthy food, fight fatigue, do exercises and try to relax. A caregiver can be so busy that he forgets to eat or it is a quicker way for him to eat fast food, but not a well-balanced meal. One should remember that caregivers also need to be strong and that is why they should eat at least 3 well-balanced meals per day, drink less alcohol, eat fruits and vegetables, drink enough water and do not drink a lot of coffee or tea. Very often caregivers have a lot to do and that is why they go to sleep late and get up early. There are times when a caregiver has to wake up in the middle of the night, because the patient needs some help. All of this worsens their health and it would be useful for the caregiver to schedule his or her sleep according to …