Anyone senior care or hospice professional can experience Compassion Fatigue. Nurses, doctors, counselors, therapists, social workers, chaplains, emergency response workers, and people caring for aging parents are vulnerable.

Many people associate compassion fatigue with caregivers and those in caregiving jobs because of their frequent exposure to their clients’ pain and suffering.  Primary care givers are mostly vulnerable and experience compassion fatigue when they provide round the clock care to sick family members. Several challenging aspects contribute to compassion fatigue. Lack of resources, complexities in patient’s clinical condition, long caring hours, challenging behaviors of the sick person, lack of filial support from the family and  in some cases filial disputes also contribute to compassion fatigue.

In most cases if the caring family member is also the earning family member, the complexities triples and caregiver burnout will be quicker and severe. Self-care is key when it comes to dealing with compassion fatigue.