Prevalence and factors of compassion fatigue among nurse in China: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Compassion fatigue is defined as a detrimental consequence of experiencing work-related stress among nurses, which can affect the job performance and harm emotional and physical health. The high risk of compassion fatigue among nurses may be even more severe in China. Although several studies have explored the prevalence and factors of compassion fatigue among Chinese nurses, most data derived merely from the specialty units of the hospital or limited samples, and there is a large heterogeneity among studies. Thus, it is indispensable to systematically summarize the risk factors and prevalence of compassion fatigue among clinical nurse in China. METHODS: Two reviewers will independently conduct comprehensively searches in 9 electronic databases including PubMed, The Cochrane Library, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), EMBASE, Web of science, MEDLINE, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WanFang and Chinese Biological Medical Database (CBM) with no search date restriction. Cross-sectional and prospective cohort studies that described the prevalence and factors of Chinese nurses compassion fatigue will be eligible for inclusion. The risk of bias and methodological quality of individual study will be assessed using an adapted quality assessment tool from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Stata 16.0 software will be used for meta-analysis. RESULTS: The primary outcome will be the prevalence of 3 dimension of compassion fatigue in Chinese nurses. The secondary outcomes will be comparisons of compassion fatigue scores among Chinese nurse of different education background, marital status, employment forms and professional titles. CONCLUSION: This overview will contribute to reveal the prevalence and influencing factors in compassion fatigue among Chinese nurses and provide a scientific evidence for the prediction and prevention in compassion fatigue. REGISTRATION NUMBER: The registration DOI is 10.17605/OSF.IO/V34X6.