Examining Relationships Among Nursing Students' Views of Suffering, Positive Thinking, and Professional Quality of...

Exposure to suffering can lead to compassion fatigue in undergraduate nursing students.

Guided by resilience theory, a cross-sectional, correlational design was used to investigate the potential moderating effect of positive thinking skills on the relationships between views of suffering, compassion fatigue, and compassion satisfaction.

In 157 undergraduate nursing students, multiple regressions revealed that views of suffering and positive thinking explained 23.8% of the variance in compassion satisfaction (F_11,145 = 4.121, P < .001), and 21.9% of the variance in burnout (F_11,144 = 3.786, P < .001). The Suffering God view, which stresses the presence of a compassionate deity amid suffering, and positive thinking had significant main effects on compassion satisfaction (β = 0.349, P = .025; and β = 0.309, P < .001, respectively). Positive thinking, the Suffering God view, and the Random view, in which the occurrence of suffering is random and purposeless, had significant main effects on burnout (β = -0.280, P < .001; β = -0.392, P = .014; and β = -0.206, P = .014, respectively). The Unorthodox view, in which a deity exists that allows suffering, had a significant main effect on secondary traumatic stress (β = 0.232, P = .027). Positive thinking did not moderate any of the relationships between the views of suffering and the dependent variables.

Knowledge of these relationships can aid in the assessment of nursing students at risk for poor outcomes and guide intervention development to promote professional quality of life.