Determination of Compassion Fatigue in Intensive Care and Palliative Care Nurses: A Scale Development Study

Objective: This research was planned to develop a measurement tool to determine compassion fatigue in nurses to provide intensive care, oncology and palliative care and to conduct a validity and reliability study of the developed measurement tool. Method: The study was conducted using a mixed-method design, with 313 nurses working in oncology, intensive care, and palliative care departments at two training hospitals and one state hospital. The item pool for the scale consisted of 81 items, which were reviewed by experts. After the content validity process, the candidate scale was reduced to 45 items. Data were analyzed using qualitative methods (content analysis) and quantitative methods, including normality tests, exploratory factor analysis, maximum likelihood, varimax rotation, Pearson correlation test, and Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient. Results: It was found that 66% of the participants were aged between 26 and 31, 61% were female, and 94% had a bachelor's degree. The exploratory factor analysis revealed a 5-factor structure with 27 items: physical impact, working conditions, care, psychological impact, and social-spiritual impact. The scale's content validity index was 0.79, the total variance explained was 41.498%, and item-total correlation values ranged from 0.330 to 0.673. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient for the scale was 0.782, omega was 0.781, and CR (composite reliability) was 0.830. Conclusion: The analysis found that the “Compassion Fatigue Scale Intensive Care and Palliative Care Nurses is a valid and reliable measurement tool to determine the compassion fatigue levels of intensive care, oncology and palliative care nurses.