Citation

Stevenson MC, Ravipati VM, Schaefer CT. Child Maltreat. 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/10775595241240755

PMID

38544477

Abstract

Because COVID triggered elevated rates of child abuse, but diminished rates of child abuse reporting, we explored predictors of nurses' attitudes toward reporting suspected child abuse during the COVID pandemic. In particular, we expected that compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction would mediate the effects of COVID-related stressors (i.e., exposure to COVID patient death and suffering; COVID-related family income loss; frequent direct care of COVID patients; and parental burnout) on nurses' negative attitudes toward reporting suspected child abuse. Employing chain-referral sampling, we recruited a sample of 244 registered nurses (83% White; 87% women). Supporting hypotheses, compassion fatigue mediated the effects of job-related COVID stressors (exposure to COVID patient death and suffering; COVID-related family income loss; and frequent direct care of COVID patients) on nurses' negative attitudes toward reporting suspected child abuse. In addition, among nurses who were also parents, nurses' self-reported parental burnout mediated the relation between compassion fatigue and negative attitudes toward reporting suspected child abuse. In addition, compassion satisfaction mediated the effect of nurses' parental burnout on nurses' negative attitudes toward reporting suspected child abuse.

Language: en

Keywords

child abuse prevention; child abuse reporting; compassion fatigue; compassion satisfaction; COVID; mandated abuse reporting