Emotional distancing in nursing: A concept analysis

Emotional distancing was introduced as a means of coping with emotional labor. It safeguards healthcare workers from difficult emotional interactions with patients. It also provides caregivers with an escape from emotional exhaustion, compassion fatigue, and burnout.

This paper aims at defining emotional distancing by identifying its critical attributes and empirical use.

A literature search was performed using applicable medical and health databases not merely restricted to the medical or nursing fields to understand the concept's true nature. "Emotional distance," "emotional distant," "emotional distancing," "emotionally distance," "emotionally distant," "emotionally distancing," "emotions [MeSH Terms] distance," "emotions distant," and "emotions distancing" were utilized as keywords and controlled vocabulary.

Walker and Avant's method was utilized as a comprehensive review of the literature to clarify the meaning of emotional distancing. Antecedents, characteristics, and consequences of emotional distancing were obtained systematically.

Based on the analysis, emotional distancing is a self-controlled defensive strategy involving emotional separation from patients to maintain neutrality.

Emotional distancing can enable health-related workers to protect the mental health of nurses while also providing best nursing care to patients. This helps reduce emotional labor and maintain nurses' professionalism. Further research is needed to develop a specific tool that can identify the circumstances and how healthcare workers can implement this strategy in practice. Emotional distancing is an important term that requires conceptual analysis as a coping strategy to protect the mental health of nurses while also serving the best nursing care to patients.