Abstract
This study examined compassion fatigue/burnout, compassion satisfaction and subjective happiness in mental health providers. This study utilized a snowball sampling method for obtaining participants 18 years and older who worked as mental health providers. One hundred and thirty-five participants completed the survey. Three one-way analyses of variance (ANCOVA) were used to examine the relationship between compassion fatigue, burnout and compassion satisfaction and mental health providers working with high or low trauma populations. Pearson r correlations were used to assess the relationship between compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue and burnout, and to evaluate the relationship between compassion satisfaction and subjective happiness. Of the three hypotheses proposed for the present study, two were fully supported by the statistical analysis. Overall results indicated that mental health providers reported greater degrees of compassion fatigue, burnout and were likely to report a less degree of subjective happiness. Additionally, mental health providers reporting greater compassion satisfaction reported more subjective happiness. Further understanding in this area will assist in the ability for mental health providers to take additional measures to safeguard themselves from compassion fatigue or burnout.