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Compassion Fatigue In US Vascular Surgery Trainees
Simrithaa Karunakaran, Patrick Sweeney, Nicholas Schaper, Saideep Bose, Matthew Smeds.
Saint Louis University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.
OBJECTIVES: Compassion fatigue (CF) is a feeling of emotional exhaustion felt by those helping individuals in distressing situations, causing a sense of apathy/desensitization towards future suffering, promoting unhealthy patient-physician relationships, increased burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. This study aims to determine the prevalence of CF amongst U.S. vascular surgery trainees and identify modifiable risk factors to diminish its occurrence.
METHODS: An anonymous electronic survey measuring CF, social support, workplace discrimination, and personal/programmatic demographics was sent to all U.S. vascular surgery trainees. Descriptive statistics were performed as well as univariate and multivariate analysis. Respondents were divided into groups by both CF and discrimination scoring, with the first quartile being the cutoff.
RESULTS: 126/709(18%) trainees completed the survey of which 54% were male, 48% were married, and 79% had no children. 69% of respondents were integrated residents and 61% are senior. On univariate analysis, trainees with higher discrimination scores, more duty hour violations, fewer weekends off, fewer staff/faculty social events, and those currently experiencing distressing clinical situations report higher CF(p < 0.05). Individuals with higher CF scores were more likely to report that they would not choose to be a vascular surgery trainee “if they could do it all over again” (p < 0.001). High discrimination scores were found to correlate with being female (p < 0.001) and one’s ethnicity (p < 0.05). On multivariate analysis for CF, age, frequency of 80+ hour violations, and distress about clinical situations were significant(Table).
CONCLUSIONS: Compassion fatigue is more likely to be present in trainees experiencing distressing clinical situations as well as those working longer hours with fewer weekends off. Addressing modifiable aspects and providing support to trainees undergoing stressful clinical scenarios may help reduce CF.
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