The Cost of Compassion - A Qualitative Research on Compassion Fatigue Amongst Norwegian Nurses.

Abstract

Compassion fatigue is a psychological disorder, however as the understanding of psychological disorders increases, the study on how they impact society needs to be strengthened. As compassion fatigue can be briefly defined as the cost of caring for others, this dissertation aimed to bring light to the experiences of Norwegian nurses in a post-Covid society. Additionally, this dissertation aimed to showcase how sociological research can contribute to the study of compassion fatigue from a micro, meso, and macrosociological approach. Since the research question for this research was “how do professionals perform their roles in the aftermath of emotional exhaustion?”, this research follows a qualitative approach of data gathering. The data was collected by performing 10 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Norwegian nurses of different ages and from different areas of Norway. For the analysis, a constant comparative method was utilised in order to identify the findings. The aftermath of exhaustion was defined as the period after the Covid 19 pandemic.

Norwegian nurses encounter several systematic challenges that hinder them from properly performing their roles as both nurses and as regular members of society. Amongst the challenges discussed in this research were the de-professionalisation of nurses, caused by the state’s partiality towards financial benefits over the actual need of nurses. Other themes include the fluctuation between emotional labour and emotion work, the rather impractical perception both society and nurses have of how nurses are supposed to be, the development of personas to compartmentalise the different aspects of their lives, and the break from traditional and collective-building rituals.

These findings indicate that nurses simply are not fully equipped to properly regulate their emotions, leading to more emotional exhaustion, thus making it harder for them to perform their jobs as nurses, as well for a need for new health care reforms. The findings also showed the need for future, complementary study, that can shed more light on the long-term effects of suffering from emotional exhaustion.