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This Holiday Season Try a Little Self-Compassion

December 17, 2021 Written by jlocke

Health care professionals have emotionally demanding careers and high rates of emotional exhaustion, compassion fatigue, and burnout (19). They experience exposure to human suffering and death, and interact with challenging patients, families, and co-workers on a regular basis. Simultaneously, they must perform their job tasks efficiently, accurately, and ethically (3, 5,8,14,17).

Stress in health care professionals is a serious concern because it can adversely affect their mental health, quality of life, and job performance (4, 7, 16). Stress is also correlated with reduced ability to establish strong relations with patients which is a critical component to positive therapeutic outcomes (6, 15, 18, 20).

Health care professionals with elevated burnout and compassion fatigue ratings are associated with having poorer quality of life and patient care and are inversely correlated with having less self-compassion (19). Research indicates self-compassion provides clinicians with immediate self-care to alleviate personal empathetic distress and to proceed with empathic care (13). Preliminary research suggests a positive relationship between higher self-compassion and overall wellbeing in health care professionals and lower risk of burnout (1).

Illinois DocAssist has collected resources to help you regain your balance, feel better, and improve your patient care especially during the holiday session.

 

 

  • Emory University’s Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion Based Ethics has free videos to help increase your self-compassion.

 

  • Stanford’s Center For Compassion and Altruism Research And Education offers 14 continuing education credits on compassion training for non-M.D.’s, though training is available for all healthcare professionals.

 

  • Finally, the AMA has several articles on using self-compassion strategies to enhance your work-life balance.
References:

  1. Beaumont, E., Irons, C., Rayner, G., & Dagnall, N. (2016b). Does compassion-focused therapy training for health care educators and providers increase self-compassion and reduce self-persecution and self-criticism? Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 36(1), 4–10.
  2. Burnout an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Disease. World Health Organization.  Accessed: 1/10/2020
  3. Dyrbye, L. N., Thomas, M. R., & Shanafelt, T. D. (2005). Medical student distress: Causes, consequences, and proposed solutions. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 80(12), 1613–1622 Elsevier.
  4. Galantino, M. L., Baime, M., Maguire, M., Szapary, P. O., & Farrar, J. T. (2005). Association of psychological and physiological measures of stress in health-care professionals during an 8-week mindfulness meditation program: Mindfulness in practice. Stress and Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 21(4), 255–261.
  5. Lee, F., Brown, J., & Stewart, M. (2009). Exploring family physician stress: Helpful strategies. Canadian Family Physician, 55(3), 288– 289
  6. Leiter, M. P., Harvie, P., & Frizzell, C. (1998). The correspondence of patient satisfaction and nurse burnout. Social Science & Medicine, 47(10), 1611–1617.
  7. McVicar, A. (2003). Workplace stress in nursing: A literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 44(6), 633–642.
  8. Murphy, R. J., Gray, S. A., Sterling, G., Reeves, K., & DuCette, J. (2009). A comparative study of professional student stress. Journal of Dental Education, 73(3), 328–337
  9. Neff, K. D. (2003). The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion. Self and Identity, 2(3), 223–250.
  10. Neff, K. (2011) Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. HarperCollins Publishers.
  11. Neff, KD et al. Caring for others without losing yourself: An adaptation of the Mindful Self-Compassion program for healthcare communities. Journal of Clin Psychol. 2020;1-20.
  12. Neff, K. D., & Dahm, K. A. (2015). Self-compassion: What it is, what it does, and how it relates to mindfulness. In Handbook of mindfulness and self-regulation (pp. 121–137). New York: Springer.
  13. Neff, K., & Germer, C. (2018). The mindful self-compassion workbook: A proven way to accept yourself, build inner strength, and thrive. Guilford Publications.
  14. Regehr, C., Glancy, D., Pitts, A., & LeBlanc, V. R. (2014). Interventions to reduce the consequences of stress in physicians: A review and meta-analysis. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 202(5), 353–359.
  15. Shanafelt, T. D., Bradley, K. A., Wipf, J. E., & Back, A. L. (2002). Burnout and self-reported patient care in an internal medicine residency program. Annals of In
  16. Spickard Jr., A., Gabbe, S. G., & Christensen, J. F. (2002). Mid-career burnout in generalist and specialist physicians. JAMA, 288(12), 1447–1450.
  17. Stewart, S. M., Betson, C., Lam, T. H., Marshall, I. B., Lee, P. W. H., & Wong, C. M. (1997). Predicting stress in first year medical students: A longitudinal study. Medical Education, 31(3), 163–168.
  18. Vahey, D. C., Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., Clarke, S. P., & Vargas, D. (2004). Nurse burnout and patient satisfaction. Medical Care, 42(2 Suppl), 1157–1166.
  19. Wasson, R. S., Barratt, C., O’Brien, W. H. (2020) Effects of Mindfulness-Based Interventions on Self-compassion in Health Care Professionals. Springer.
  20. Williams, E. S., Manwell, L. B., Konrad, T. R., & Linzer, M. (2007). The relationship of organizational culture, stress, satisfaction, and burnout with physician-reported error and suboptimal patient care: Results from the MEMO study. Health Care Management Review, 32(3), 203–212.
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