Compassion Fatigue is emotional exhaustion, caused by the stress of caring for traumatized or suffering individual. There are other terms that can be related to compassion fatigue such as burnout, According to the American Institute of stress (2014) it can also be called “vicarious traumatization” or “secondary traumatization” (para. 2) and just plain sick and tired. “Compassion fatigue allows caregivers to become emotionally drained, suffer from a myriad of stress-related illnesses, and eventually leave their profession if they are not helped to deal with this debilitating situation” (Varner, 2004, para.3).
To prevent this you need to be able to know when you are beginning to become stress and then do something to prevent the stress level to where you can’t take it like taking time off of work, you should always make time for you enjoy yourself, make sure that your eating habits have not lacked and that you are eating on the daily basics because skipping meals isn’t good also you want to make sure that you are getting enough rest.
I think that as a caregiver and for me I have a problem with getting attached to my clients therefore if someone was to call into work and I was asked to cover their shift I would even though I was tired and just because I wouldn’t want them to be without care and I know that it is hard for me to say no. I know that I wouldn’t take care of my health like I should and also my relationship and family could lack because I’m always at work and never home, becoming stressed and not sleeping.
What I can do to ensure that these things aren’t happening to me is to be sure that I take time out for myself as well as my family, go to the doctor on the regular scheduled basics, make sure that when I start to feel stressed that I stop what I’m doing and relax and make sure that I spend some time with me by doing something other than work and that I enjoy doing, last but not least when I recognize that my sleep habits have changed make sure that I set a certain bed time for myself so that I am getting the proper hours of sleep and do these things on the daily basics.
When I think back to the beginning of class I thought that I knew a lot of information pertaining to case management, but found out I didn’t know as much as I need. I knew about the SOAP notes and DAP notes but I hadn’t even thought about all the other forms that we were going to be using such as the Admission form and the ISP form or the discharge forms now that I have done them and being able to see everyone else’s it has helped me a lot.
I also enjoyed the discussions and getting the feedback a lot of it was positive and I took notes so that I would be sure to use them when the time came. I believe that this class has helped me a lot and that with everything that I leaned I think that when I do get into the field that I will be able to help my client out to the best of my ability.
