Background: Compassion fatigue is a common phenomenon among healthcare professionals and includes several concepts that share a direct relationship with quality of life, with consequences on both physical and emotional well-being but also at the economic and organizational levels.
Objectives: To analyze the profile of scientific publications on compassion fatigue, dissecting trends, and highlighting research opportunities.
Method: Bibliometric analysis based on Donthu's guidelines, data collection from Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), and analytic techniques (performance analysis and science mapping) with VOSviewer® and CiteSpace®.
Results: We obtained 1364 articles and found that the concept emerged in 1995 and is frequently associated with areas of general health. Through analysis, we identified the following research frontiers: "vicarious traumatization", "working", "survivor", "mental health", and "impact".
Conclusion: There has been a growing interest in this subject among researchers, with an increase in scientific production related to areas of health such as nursing, providing a solid starting point for further investigation. Registration number from the Open Science Framework: osf.io/b3du8.
Keywords: bibliometrics; compassion; compassion fatigue.