Suffering, violence and the occurrence of compassion fatigue in veterinary profession in Poland

This article concerns the phenomenon of compassion fatigue, also known as secondary traumatization or STSD and sometimes referred to as the psychological cost of caring for victims, the consequence of exposure to the effects of traumatic experiences, violence, neglect, suffering and death, as well as fear or despair as emotions accompanying these states. Professional caregivers, health and safety workers, members of emergency services are among those at particular risk and most compassion fatigue studies have shed light on compassion fatigue effecting from exposure to suffering of other people. While it is clear that veterinarians are caregivers, not many studies so far looked into the compassion fatigue phenomenon in this profession. This article presents the overview of a 2018 study on compassion fatigue, burnout and compassion satisfaction among Polish small mammal veterinary doctors (n=203). The results indicate that risks are particularly high for veterinarians with short professional experience (0–5 years) who felt the least happy and most overburdened with work. Young veterinarians also scored the highest on being frequently impacted by the trauma of animals they treated (55,5% vs. 32,8%) and by the difficult emotions of animals’ caretakers/owners (44,4% vs. 29,6%). The scores were higher among female veterinarians, and the highest among females with short professional experience