The relationship between self-care practices, burnout, compassion fatigue, and compassion satisfaction among professional counselors and counselors-in-training

The present study examined the relationship between compassion fatigue, burnout, compassion satisfaction, and self-care among counselors and counselors-in-training. Additionally, the current study investigated if recent life changes, age, sex, race, years of experience, education level, and work/internship setting impacted counselors' and counselors'-in-training self-reports of compassion fatigue, burnout, compassion satisfaction, and self-care. A total of 253 counselors and counselors-in-training were surveyed through a professional conference, internship classes, and email listservs. Variables were measured through the use of a demographic questionnaire, the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL 5), the Self-Care Assessment Worksheet (SCAW), and the Recent Life Changes Questionnaire (RLCQ). Pearson-product moment correlations, analysis of variances (ANOVAs), and t-tests were utilized to determine potential relationships between variables. Results indicated that recent life changes impact both burnout and compassion fatigue. Compassion satisfaction appeared to influence burnout, but not compassion fatigue. Results also determined that burnout and compassion fatigue are positively correlated with each other. When examining the demographic variables, results revealed that women experience higher levels of compassion fatigue than men. Burnout was found to be higher for participants who are working or interning in agency and school settings than those in private practices or hospitals. Participants in agency and school settings were also found to be associated with lower amounts of self-care than those in private practices. Nonstudent agency workers were determined to have higher amounts of compassion satisfaction with age and increased engagement in psychological self-care activities. However, self-care was negatively correlated with compassion satisfaction for participants in school settings