Compassion fatigue and psychological problems among women mental health practitioners: character strengths and psychological resilience act as buffers

Providing specialized mental health care to those diagnosed with psychological illness is an emotionally, psychological and physically demanding profession, placing Mental Health Practitioners (MHPs) at risk of being personally affected by the demands of their profession. The present study measured levels of Compassion Fatigue (CF; secondary trauma and burnout), Psychological Problems (PP; depression, anxiety, stress) and Resilience, in women MHPs sample. Research objectives focused on exploring specific Character Strengths that are positively associated with psychological resilience and provide a barrier against Compassion Fatigue and Psychological Problems for the sample. 120 women MHPs (psychiatrist = 30, psychologist = 69, and counselor = 21) were selected as study participants through purposive sampling. Measures of Professional Quality of Life Scale, Depression Anxiety and Stress scale, Brief resilient coping scale, and Character strength rating scale were used for quantitative data collection. The analyses revealed high CF scores associated with significantly high PP scores (p < .01). Furthermore, high score on PP is related to low resilience (p < .01) and poor scores on character strengths, which are significantly positively related to compassion satisfaction. The character strengths of love for learning, capacity to love, gratitude, teamwork, kindness, forgiveness, leadership, curiosity, and religiousness significantly predicted compassion satisfaction. Psychological resilience was positively associated with compassion satisfaction (r = .60, p < .01). Study findings identify the professional significance of personal character strengths of women MHPs. It acknowledges that specific personal choices of women MHPs outside of work, influence their quality of professional capacity as care providers.