Chain mediations of perceived social support and emotional regulation efficacy between role stress and compassion fatigue: insights from the COVID-19 pandemic

Yuan Zhang; Huijuan He; Chongming Yang; Xiangrong Wang; Jiang'an Luo; Jie Xiao; Bei Fu; Yiwen Chen; Chenjuan Ma

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1269594

Chain mediations of perceived social support and emotional regulation efficacy between role stress and compassion fatigue: insights from the COVID-19 pandemic

Front Public Health. 2023 Nov 13:11:1269594. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1269594. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yuan Zhang¹, Huijuan He¹, Chongming Yang², Xiangrong Wang¹, Jiang'an Luo¹, Jie Xiao¹, Bei Fu¹, Yiwen Chen¹, Chenjuan Ma³

Affiliations

¹ School of Nursing, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
² College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, United States.
³ NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing, New York, NY, United States.

Abstract

Background: Nurses at the frontline faced high risks of the COVID-19 infection, undertook heavy workloads of patient care, and experienced tremendous stress that often led to compassion fatigue.

Aim: This study was to explore the role of positive psychosocial resources (i.e., perceived social support and emotional regulation efficacy) in the relationship between role stress and compassion fatigue.

Methods: A cross-sectional design was conducted in Hubei Province, China between May and September 2021. The Role Stress Questionnaire, the Perceived Social Support Scale, the Emotional Regulation Efficacy Scale, and the Professional Quality of Life Scale were used to measure key variables of interest. Nurse socio-demographic data were also collected. Structural equation modeling was used to explore the relationships, including potential mediating effect, among role stress, perceived social support, emotional regulation efficacy, and compassion fatigue.

Results: A total of 542 nurses participated in this investigation, and 500 were eventually enrolled in the analysis. The incidence of compassion fatigue among nurses was 94.2%, including 65.8% of nurses reporting at least moderate compassion fatigue. Univariate analysis showed that educational level, marital status, hospital rank, sleep time were the factors affecting compassion fatigue of the nurses. The structural equation modeling revealed that: Role stress had a direct positive effect on compassion fatigue; Perceived social support and emotional regulation efficacy partially mediated the link between role stress and compassion fatigue respectively; And there was a chain mediating role of perceived social support and emotional regulation efficacy between role stress and compassion fatigue.

Conclusion: The incidence of compassion fatigue was high during the COVID-19 pandemic among bedside nurses in China. Improving social support and enhancing the efficacy of emotion regulation may help alleviate compassion fatigue directly and/or via buffering the impact of role stress.

Keywords: COVID-19; compassion fatigue; emotional regulation efficacy; nurses; perceived social support; role stress.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Burnout, Professional* / epidemiology
Burnout, Professional* / psychology
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Compassion Fatigue* / epidemiology
Compassion Fatigue* / psychology
Cross-Sectional Studies
Emotional Regulation*
Humans
Pandemics
Quality of Life / psychology
Social Support

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This project was funded by the Health Commission of Hubei Province (WJ2021M212).