Mindful Self-Care and Compassion Fatigue in Nurses: The Chain Mediating Roles of Resilience and Professional Identity

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the relationship between mindful self-care and compassion fatigue and the chain mediating effects of resilience and professional identity.

Background: Compassion is a critical quality for nurses, but they often face the risk of compassion fatigue.

Methods: From October 2023 to May 2024, a cross-sectional survey was conducted in six tertiary hospitals in Guangdong, Henan, and Jiangsu provinces by convenience sampling. A total of 1315 clinical nurses in the hospital were surveyed using the Social–demographic Characteristics Questionnaire, the Chinese Version of the Brief Mindful Self-Care Scale, the Chinese Version of the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, the Professional Identity Scale for Nurses, and the Chinese Version of the Compassion Fatigue Short Scale. The mediation model was analyzed using a bias-corrected bootstrapping method with PROCESS 4.1 implemented in SPSS 26.0.

Results: Pearson correlation analysis showed that there was a positive correlation between nurses’ mindful self-care, resilience, and professional identity. Mindful self-care, resilience, and professional identity were negatively correlated with compassion fatigue. Resilience played a partial mediating role between mindful self-care and compassion fatigue. Professional identity also played a partial mediating role between mindful self-care and compassion fatigue; mindful self-care affected compassion fatigue through resilience and professional identity.

Conclusion: Nurses’ mindful self-care can affect compassion fatigue through the mediating role of resilience and professional identity. In the future, attention should be paid to cultivating nurses’ mindful self-care ability and resilience and improving nurses’ professional identity, which may help to reduce nurses’ compassion fatigue.