Context for Practice: Nurses practise self-reflection and self-care to strengthen their ability to provide compassionate care and build resilience. Nurses recognize the effects that helping others can have on their nursing practice and personal well-being. Nurses are aware of the impact of factors such as moral distress, burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma and they take action to mitigate these impacts. Nurses in formal and informal leadership roles advocate for appropriate policies, processes and guidance to support nurses’ well-being.
| Ethical Responsibilities: Nurses strengthen their ability for compassionate practice and personal well-being by |
| 2.2.1 |
developing awareness of their own emotional responses, feelings, values, biases, beliefs and assumptions to cultivate empathy and compassion; |
| 2.2.2 |
refraining from imposing their own values, biases, beliefs, assumptions and moral positions on others in their practice; |
| 2.2.3 |
managing work-life harmony by setting boundaries between work and personal life; |
| 2.2.4 |
seeking help, mentoring, and all supports deemed necessary to strengthen their compassionate and humanizing practice; and |
| 2.2.5 |
practising self-reflection and self-care (including seeking support from colleagues, mentors, or professional counsellors, etc.) to strengthen their resilience and to prevent and/or address compassion fatigue (including moral distress, burnout, vicarious trauma, etc.). |
In addition, nurses in formal or informal leadership (e.g., administration, clinical care, education, policy and research) roles actively support nurses’ ability to provide compassionate care and their personal well-being by
| 2.2.6 |
implementing policies and practices that support nurses’ well-being and their ability to provide compassionate care, such as appropriate staffing levels and manageable workloads; |
| 2.2.7 |
providing compassionate leadership, fostering mutual support, and valuing good work-life harmony; and |
| 2.2.8 |
advocating for and establishing improvements in systems, structures and policies that reduce workplace stressors and foster a culture that supports the health and professional well-being of nurses. |