Abstract
Professionals working in cancer care are exposed to strong sources of stress. Due to the special characteristics of this unit, the appearance of burnout, compassion fatigue, and low compassion satisfaction is more likely. The principal aim was to analyze the levels and prevalence of burnout, compassion fatigue, and low compassion satisfaction in oncology nurses and interventions for its treatment. The search for the systematic review was done in Medline, ProQuest, Lilacs, CINAHL, Scopus, Scielo, and PsycINFO databases, with the search equation “burnout AND nurs* AND oncology AND compassion fatigue”. The results obtained from the 15 studies confirmed that there are levels of risk of suffering burnout and compassion fatigue among nursing professionals, affecting more women and nurses with more years of experience, with nurses from oncology units having one of the highest levels of burnout and compassion fatigue. The oncology nurse sample was n = 900. The meta-analytic estimations were 19% for low compassion satisfaction, 56% for medium and high burnout, BO, and 60% for medium and high compassion fatigue. The increase in cases of burnout and compassion fatigue in nursing staff can be prevented and minimized with a correct evaluation and development of intervention programs, considering that there are more women than men and that they seem to be more vulnerable.
Highlights
Work in the healthcare field is characterized by the presence of numerous factors that can cause stress in different work environment areas
The particularity of the work and patient assistance in each unit is important for the study of burnout in nurses because it can change the risk of burnout development, as it has been shown in studies in pediatric services [8], obstetrics/gynecology [9], psychiatry [10], emergencies [6,11], and especially in oncology [12,13,14,15]
Characteristics of the Selected Studies A total of n = 15 studies were obtained from the search (Table 1). The samples of these studies included nurses working in oncology units and the majority of the subjects were women
Summary
Work in the healthcare field is characterized by the presence of numerous factors that can cause stress in different work environment areas (psychological, social, and work). The development of chronic stress in healthcare professionals can lead to the appearance of burnout syndrome, characterized by the presence of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization in the treatment of patients, and a low personal accomplishment [1,2,3]. Burnout has negative effects for healthcare professionals (insomnia, irritability, etc.) and in the workplace, like absenteeism, temporary work disability, deterioration of patient care, or more errors in the job. This syndrome has been recognized as an occupational disease by being included in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) of the World Health Organization [4]. The particularity of the work and patient assistance in each unit is important for the study of burnout in nurses because it can change the risk of burnout development, as it has been shown in studies in pediatric services [8], obstetrics/gynecology [9], psychiatry [10], emergencies [6,11], and especially in oncology [12,13,14,15]
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