Self-Compassion Interventions to Target Secondary Traumatic Stress in Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jun 12;20(12):6109. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20126109.

Abstract

Healthcare professionals' wellbeing can be adversely affected by the intense demands of, and the secondary traumatic stress associated with, their job. Self-compassion is associated with positive wellbeing outcomes across a variety of workforce populations and is potentially an important skill for healthcare workers, as it offers a way of meeting one's own distress with kindness and understanding. This systematic review aimed to synthesise and evaluate the utility of self-compassion interventions in reducing secondary traumatic stress in a healthcare worker population. Eligible articles were identified from research databases, including ProQuest, PsycINFO, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and EBSCO. The quality of non-randomised and randomised trials was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. The literature search yielded 234 titles, from which 6 studies met the inclusion criteria. Four studies reported promising effects of self-compassion training for secondary traumatic stress in a healthcare population, although these did not use controls. The methodological quality of these studies was medium. This highlights a research gap in this area. Three of these four studies recruited workers from Western countries and one recruited from a non-Western country. The Professional Quality of Life Scale was used to evaluate secondary traumatic stress in all studies. The findings show preliminary evidence that self-compassion training may improve secondary traumatic stress in healthcare professional populations; however, there is a need for greater methodological quality in this field and controlled trials. The findings also show that the majority of research was conducted in Western countries. Future research should focus on a broader range of geographical locations to include non-Western countries.

Keywords: compassion fatigue; health care worker; secondary traumatic stress; self-compassion; systematic review.

Publication types

  • Systematic Review
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Burnout, Professional*
  • Compassion Fatigue* / epidemiology
  • Compassion Fatigue* / prevention & control
  • Empathy
  • Health Personnel
  • Humans
  • Quality of Life
  • Self-Compassion

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.