| The Florida Crisis Response Team (FCRT) is a statewide, nonprofit organization comprised of individuals who work in all areas of human services. Membership in the FCRT is contingent upon completing a minimum of 40 hours of basic community CRT sponsored by the National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA). Upon completion of the 40-hour training program, these volunteers are deployed to assist victims of natural and manmade disasters, which often involves secondary exposure of the victims to the death, destruction, and devastation resulting from crisis and trauma. Compassion fatigue has been identified as an occupational hazard of crisis work. It is a state of tension, anxiety, and stress that occurs when crisis responders experience the cumulative trauma reactions of victims. A quantitative, correlational study involving 96 randomly selected FCRT members was conducted using the Professional Quality of Life Scale: Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout, and Compassion Fatigue/Secondary Trauma Scales (ProQOL R-IV). The 30-item questionnaire, in addition to providing demographic information, was used to explore the relationship between compassion fatigue and the variables of compassion satisfaction, job burnout, and CRT. The findings showed a strong negative correlation between compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue and that job burnout and gender are the strongest predictors of compassion fatigue. |
