Compassion Fatigue in Military Healthcare Teams

Since the onset of the Iraq war and Afghanistan conflicts, military healthcare teams have had increasing exposure to the traumatic effects of caring for wounded warriors, leading to a phenomenon termed compassion fatigue. The purpose of this integrative review was to develop a proposed definition for compassion fatigue in support of these teams. There is no current standardized formal definition, and this lack of clarity can inhibit intervention. Seven main themes evolved from the literature review and were integrated with the core elements of the Bandura Social Cognitive Theory Model as the first step in developing a uniformed definition.