Compassion fatigue in healthcare workers: a narrative literature review

This is the first article for the series ‘Advanced practice in progress’ – a collaboration between the International Journal for Advancing Practice and the Academy of Advanced Practice Research, UK . Background: Compassion fatigue is increasingly recognised as a significant challenge for the healthcare workforce, with implications for staff wellbeing, retention and quality of care. Aims: This narrative literature review examines evidence on the personal, organisational and educational factors that influence compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction among healthcare workers. Methods: CINAHL, MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library databases were searched. Literature was limited to English-language, peer-reviewed sources and synthesised using a thematic narrative approach. Themes were developed following Braun and Clarke's framework. Results: Findings highlight the interaction between workload pressures, leadership, organisational culture and individual resilience in shaping professional wellbeing. International evidence demonstrates the value of meaningful recognition, supportive leadership and structured opportunities for reflection in sustaining compassionate practice. Conclusions: Addressing compassion fatigue requires coordinated organisational and professional responses that move beyond individual coping strategies and embed workforce wellbeing within everyday practice, service development and professional education. Implications for practice: The review considers implications for advanced and developing advanced practitioners across clinical practice, leadership, education and research. When undertaking an academic course, it can be difficult to see the wider impact our work can have on service provision, patient outcomes and service redesign. However, developing in the four pillars of advancing practice gives us the skills and opportunity to go beyond achieving a certificate of completion. Using clinical acumen to direct the research question, research skills to develop an evidence base, leadership to embed outcomes in practice and education to share the impact of our research, we have the potential to influence the health landscape narrative. As advanced practitioners, we have a responsibility to use our learning and evidence-based outcomes to inspire change in advancing practice and benefit our patients and wider community. Health inequalities are increasing and the 10-year plan aims to shift care from hospital to community and prioritise prevention above reactive treatment. Advanced practitioners are well placed to respond, and trainees have an opportunity to use academic time to explore how care could be improved. This is why the Academy of Advanced Practice Research UK (AAPR-UK) is collaborating with IJAP to provide an opportunity for trainee and newly qualified advanced practitioners to showcase their work and support the publication of Master's dissertation abstracts from the AAPR-UK research repository so this evidence base can be shared widely. If you would like to upload your abstract, please visit: https://aapruk.org.uk/ . We thank IJAP for their support.