Compassion Fatigue in Portuguese Firefighters: Preliminary Results of the Compassion Fatigue Scale

The present study had the purpose of creating and studying the psychometric properties of the Compassion Fatigue Scale (CFS) in a sample of 286 firefighters, 69% of whom were males and 78% had previous exposure to a limit situation. All participants were assessed after their informed consent through a protocol composed of a sociodemographic data section, the CFS and the Professional Quality of Life scale (ProQOL). The CFS evidenced a two-dimensional structure, Compassion Fatigue and Compassion Satisfaction, with Cronbach's alphas superior to 0.90 and correlations in the expected direction with ProQOL. Females showed higher levels of compassion fatigue than males, demonstrating that CFS can be a reliable and valid self-report measure of compassion fatigue in firefighters.