Compassion Fatigue among Adult Children of Elderly and Sick Parents: A Review Study

Adult children of elderly and sick parents face many challenges and may experience the compassion fatigue, which can affect the care process. The aim of this study was to investigate the dimensions and symptoms of compassion fatigue in children who take care of their elderly and sick parents.

In this study, data bases including SID, Magiran, IranMedex, Google Scholar, Elsevier and PubMed were searched for studies published between 2000 and 2019 with the following keywords: Parent, Family Caregivers, Compassion Fatigue, Adult Children and Elderly. By this means, a number of 426 articles were acquired which were reviewed in two stages (first, the title and the abstract and then the whole article) based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. In the end, 17 articles entered the present study.

The type of articles used in this study were as follows: descriptive-analytical and correlational (7 articles), review (3 articles), qualitative (5 articles) and case study (2). The focus of the studies was on the different aspects of compassion fatigue. According to the reviewed studies, compassion fatigue is often accompanied by the symptoms of anxiety, helplessness, disappointment, insomnia, social isolation, reluctance as well as physical and mental fatigue. Ethical Considerations: Publication of the results is carried out honestly without bias and by citing the original reliable resources and references.

Since fatigue compassion creates various physical, psychological and social dimensions in adult children of elderly and sick parents, Support centers, counselors, and nurses need to consider this in regard to the families of elderly patients in their support program.