The Relationship Between Alarm Fatigue and Compassion Fatigue in Intensive Care Nurses

Title Your name Subject and Section Professor’s Name Date Introduction Alarm fatigue is one of the complex challenges healthcare professionals encounter in the complex working setting of intensive care units (ICUs). The center of this paper is the article by Şen et al. (2024) entitled "The Relationship Between Alarm Fatigue and Compassion Fatigue in Intensive Care Nurses." This topic attracts my attention because constant alarms are a part of my current job description as a novice ICU nurse. It is, therefore, important for the present and future generations of nurses to understand the differences between and the connection between alarm fatigue and compassion fatigue. Summary of the Article Şen et al. (2024) explained that alarm fatigue is a significant issue among ICU nurses because it causes them to experience compassion fatigue and reduces their capacity to offer compassionate care. The authors conducted a quantitative Descriptive Correlational Study with 413 critical care nurses in Istanbul, Turkey, to evaluate the study participants' level of Alarm and Compassion Fatigue. Moreover, several pivotal points are discussed in the article, and some of them are aimed at proving that the high rate of alarms results in stress and distraction among nurses and, as an outcome, in desensitization. The paradigm shift can lead to threshold deceleration and endangered patient safety due to delayed response to severe alarms. Citing different figures and calls to past research, the authors showed that alarm fatigue is a widespread phenomenon in the ICU setting and positively related to compassion fatigue. The study also found that because self-care and higher-quality patient care cannot occur when physical fatigue is not identified and combatted, and emotional fatigue causes poorer quality patient care and staff turnover, recognizing both forms of exhaustion is necessary for the welfare of patients and nurses. Additionally, the authors recommended that future studies focus on identifying significant interventions for alarm fatigue (Şen et al., 2024). This study by Şen et al. (2024) is a descriptive correlational study design suitable for understanding the relationship between alarm fatigue and compassion fatigue in ICU nurses. This design enables one to find the correlation between variables even though it does not establish a deterministic relationship. The study is highly reliable due to the large sample size (413 critical nurses). However, the convenience sampling approach confines the generalization of the result beyond Istanbul's healthcare environment. There is a reduction of biases in the study since various instruments develop...