Introduction and Objective: Provision of care by nurses may be influenced by different factors such as their physical, emotional, and psychosocial status. Filipino oncologic nurses are vulnerable to encounter these issues. The inadequacy of data regarding the professional quality of life (ProQOL) among oncology nurses in the Philippines led the researchers to conduct a study on the ProQOL of staff nurses in the Philippine General Hospital Cancer Institute (UP-PGH CI). This study aimed to find the ProQOL of nurses, focusing on their compassion, satisfaction, and compassion fatigue.
Material and Method: This research employed a descriptive cross-sectional design to provide a quantitative description of the ProQOL of staff nurses and to identify the compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue with the burnout and secondary traumatic stress levels of staff nurses using the ProQOL tool by Stamm (2010).
Results and Discussion: The study included a total of 18 respondents from the UP-PGH CI. The mean compassion satisfaction score of the staff nurses was 50.43 (SD = 10.47). The respondents had a mean burnout score of 48.46 (SD = 9.28) and a mean secondary traumatic score of 48.94 (SD = 9.98). The majority of the staff nurses have moderate levels of compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. This indicates that they are neither passionate, excited, and high in spirits in general, nor excessively depressed, unhappy, or overly emphatic. This was said to be a desirable outcome; however, this neutrality could be a sign or an onset to disinterest and emotional detachment (Ludick, Alexander, and Carmichael, 2007; Barlow and Durand, 2001).
Conclusion: Overall, the staff nurses at the UP-PGH CI have moderate compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. The results reflect that the staff nurses are at risk for developing a poor ProQOL. Although numerous strategies can be considered, addressing the personal nurse experience can be actualized by providing on-site counseling for staff (Luquette, 2005, as cited in Aycock and Boyle, 2009). There is nonetheless strong evidence that supports the effectiveness of an intensive, long-term stress management training intervention on reducing job stress and risk of burnout among a wide range of health workers in various settings. Stress management training interventions is therefore recommended to include periodic refresher sessions up to 18 months postintervention to maintain beneficial effects of the training beyond the intervention.
