Nurses are considered to be at risk of experiencing compassion fatigue, which can affect their personal and professional lives. The aim of this study was to investigate stressful factors contributing to the development of compassion fatigue in nurses, their experiences of compassion fatigue, and the coping strategies they used to cope with compassion fatigue.

The convenience sample of 86 nurses from Central Europe was recruited via social networking sites during the pandemic of COVID-19. Data collection was conducted via an online battery of questionnaires which included open-ended questions on the stressful factors, experiences, and coping strategies for compassion fatigue. The data were analysed using a theoretical thematic analysis based on Figley’s descriptions of compassion fatigue. The initial data was read several times to identify recurring statements. Each statement was then categorized into the emerging domains, subdomains, categories, and subcategories.

The results of our study show that stressful factors, experiences, and coping strategies for compassion fatigue in nurses in Central Europe could be related to cognitive, emotional, behavioural, somatic, personal relations, spiritual, and work-related symptoms of compassion fatigue as identified by Figley and that these may resemble experiences of nurses in North America, Japan, and Spain.

This study provides a detailed overview of the stressful factors, experiences, and coping strategies for compassion fatigue, which could be used to develop an early screening tool and interventions for alleviating compassion fatigue and for preventive adaptation of the health care system.