Professional Quality of Life and Emergency Department Nurses' Communication Patterns
type: CreativeWork
description: The purpose of this mixed methods embedded design study was to examine relationships between compassion satisfaction, burnout, compassion fatigue/secondary trauma, and perceived levels of communication difficulty in emergency room nurses employed at a health care system. Quantitative data was collected from a purposive sample of 43 emergency room nurses using the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL), the Silencing Response Scale, and a demographic form. The study's embedded qualitative component was participants' experiences with traumatic cases in the emergency room. Qualitative data was collected via telephone interview with 10 emergency room nurses obtained from a subset of the original sample and snowball sampling. The majority of participants reported low levels of compassion satisfaction on the ProQOL subscale (M = 38.63, SD 9.47), low levels of burnout and compassion fatigue/secondary trauma (M=21.4, SD 6.3 and M= 21.1, SD 5.2, respectively). Participants who worked in an urgent care setting scored highest (M= 44.3, SD 4.3) in perceived professional satisfaction in their ability as caregivers. The Silencing Response instrument yielded a mean score of 59.3, indicative of a moderate risk of communication difficulties for the entire sample. A correlation matrix indicated significant positive relationships between subscales of compassion satisfaction, burnout, compassion fatigue/secondary trauma, and the Silencing scale. Multiple regressions were conducted to explore the accuracy of the independent variables of compassion satisfaction, resource availability, burnout, compassion fatigue/secondary trauma, and years of experience as predictors of silencing scores. Partial regression coefficients on three separate models indicate compassion satisfaction, burnout, and compassion fatigue/secondary trauma significantly contribute to the models of predicting silencing response. Telephone interviews themes included pediatric traumas, discomfort, maintaining emotion…
abstract: The purpose of this mixed methods embedded design study was to examine relationships between compassion satisfaction, burnout, compassion fatigue/secondary trauma, and perceived levels of communication difficulty in emergency room nurses employed at a health care system. Quantitative data was collected from a purposive sample of 43 emergency room nurses using the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL), the Silencing Response Scale, and a demographic form. The study's embedded qualitative component was participants' experiences with traumatic cases in the emergency room. Qualitative data was collected via telephone interview with 10 emergency room nurses obtained from a subset of the original sample and snowball sampling. The majority of participants reported low levels of compassion satisfaction on the ProQOL subscale (M = 38.63, SD 9.47), low levels of burnout and compassion fatigue/secondary trauma (M=21.4, SD 6.3 and M= 21.1, SD 5.2, respectively). Participants who worked in an urgent care setting scored highest (M= 44.3, SD 4.3) in perceived professional satisfaction in their ability as caregivers. The Silencing Response instrument yielded a mean score of 59.3, indicative of a moderate risk of communication difficulties for the entire sample. A correlation matrix indicated significant positive relationships between subscales of compassion satisfaction, burnout, compassion fatigue/secondary trauma, and the Silencing scale. Multiple regressions were conducted to explore the accuracy of the independent variables of compassion satisfaction, resource availability, burnout, compassion fatigue/secondary trauma, and years of experience as predictors of silencing scores. Partial regression coefficients on three separate models indicate compassion satisfaction, burnout, and compassion fatigue/secondary trauma significantly contribute to the models of predicting silencing response. Telephone interviews themes included pediatric traumas, discomfort, maintaining emotion…
author: Dominguez-Gomez, Elvira, PhD
keywords: communication patterns, compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction, Emergency Department nurses, employee burnout, nursing, professional quality of life, Secondary trauma
date published: 2014-05-01T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:41:35Z
provider: University of San Diego
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of San Diego