Spirituality 4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Spirituality 4 - Essay Example Although compassionate care giving stands out as an accepted social responsibility of the nurses, the practice defies professional ethics and requirements for health workers. This essay explores compassion fatigue form a processional and ethical perspective. Nurses and other caregivers often find themselves in a dilemma concerning the care they need to give to patients and their own welfare. Although health workers have a good understanding on the nature of human body its needs for rest and healthy lifestyles, they are bound by social and professional responsibilities (Joinson, 2007). Such responsibilities force them to neglect their personal needs. Although compassion fatigue is a major problem among health workers, most health professionals overlook the problem. According to Kottler (2005), the main reason why nurses overlook compassion fatigue is that they have become used to the problem making them to compromise with the fatigue. An interview conducted on nurses working in California hospital established that most nurses used medication to make them stay awake for long hours. The survey also established that most nurses had irregular sleeping periods due to workload or a desire to offer compassion services for their patients. This indicates that health workers need to have a concrete background on compassion fatigue symptoms. Compassion fatigue symptoms are identical to those of posttraumatic stress. Unlike posttraumatic stress, compassion fatigue symptoms are based on trauma. This indicates that they have a direct impact on the patient’s life and that the impacts can be demonstrated readily by their performance and behavior (Kottler, 2005). The basic concepts of compassion fatigue are emotional, cognitive, spiritual somatic and behavior. These concepts translate into symptoms and warning signs that characterize the condition. Standard