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Hospitals Creating Programs for Nurses to Combat 'Compassion Fatigue'

CHICAGO—Nobody ever told her being a surgical nurse would be easy. But even now, in her 15th year, there are days when Judy Berglund’s emotions are so spent and her body so taxed that she can barely dress herself in the locker room after her shift.

“You don’t realize how stressed you’ve been until you can’t lift your leg to pull your pants on,” Berglund said. “Your whole body aches.”

Bruises and pulled muscles, hope and heartbreak – emotional and physical fatigue have contributed to a profound nurse shortage in hospitals across the country.

Now, many hospitals are trying to improve nurses’ morale, and in turn patient care, by creating programs that reinforce healthy habits and eliminate bad ones.

Nurses typically work 12-hour shifts, shuttling between ailing patients, demanding doctors and anxious families in the waiting room. As stress builds and meals are eaten on the run or missed altogether, nurses sometimes lose the energy to conjure sympathy for those they’re treating.

Health-care workers have higher rates of substance abuse and suicide, and elevated levels of depression and anxiety relating to job stress, according to a report this year by the Department of Health and Human Services. In many cases, the caregivers simply burn out and leave the profession, creating more stress for those who remain.

“You guys take on more than most pro athletes. You must strategize a way to keep your minds sharp, your energy level high and your emotions in balance,” trainer Ryan Angelo said at gatherings of nurses recently at Adventist Hospitals in Bolingbrook and Glendale Heights.

The message was simple, considering the students were experts in healthy living: Eat better, exercise, make time to laugh, and ease stress through controlled breathing and stretching.

At Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, a team of nurses from the women and children division last spring began exploring causes and symptoms of “compassion fatigue” with the goal of helping co-workers cope with day-to-day stresses. Working with a tight budget, the team created a nurse’s retreat in a break room where they could assemble a puzzle or lounge in a massage chair. The team put together a handbook for nurses to make them aware of stress management and counseling classes being offered to patients.

“It may not seem like much, but just to be able to sit and focus your mind on something else like a puzzle makes a difference,” said veteran nurse Susan Okuno-Jones, a member of Lutheran General’s “compassion fatigue” team.

“This isn’t about motivating nurses to change their habits; it’s about incorporating what they already know into their lifestyle,” said Angelo, a trainer based in Orlando, who last year launched a fitness and wellness company targeting nurses, Care 4 Caregivers.

In Bolingbrook, he instructed Berglund and others to fight tiredness by incorporating small exercises such as calf raises and even push-ups into their shifts. He taught them deep breathing exercises, six seconds in and six seconds out, and how to clench and release various muscle groups to lower their heart rate in stressful situations.

“Your body says to itself, if I have time to breathe in slowly, then I’m not stressed,” Angelo said.

(c) YellowBrix 2008

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