Compassion fatigue among chaplains, clergy, and other respondents after September 11th.

The September 11th terrorist attacks reminded us of how vulnerable we are to horrifying events and how widespread the effects can be. It also reminded of us how important faith is in difficult times for most Americans. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that 90% of Americans turned to religion as a coping response to the terrorist attacks on September 11th (Schuster et al., 2001). This finding is not surprising, because many Americans report that they turn to their religious faith as a means of coping with a variety of problems that cause psychological trauma (Backus et al., 1995; Smith et al., 2000; Weinrich et al., 1990). Indeed, psychiatrists and psychologists have long recognized the role clergy play as front-line, mental-health workers (Larson et al., 1988; Mannon and Crawford, 1996; Mobley et al., 1985). The American Red Cross established a collaborative relationship with professional chaplains representing a wide spectrum of the American faith communities in 1998 as part of its responsibilities under the Federal Family Assistance Plan of the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act of 1996 (ADFAA). Since then, professional chaplains have responded to all major aviation incidents through American Red Cross, including those on September 11th, 2001. American Red Cross in New York instituted a shift defusing system for its spiritual care volunteers starting on September 13 as part of its spiritual care standard operating procedure (American Red Cross, 1995). All clergy volunteers were debriefed for 15 to 30 minutes at the end of each of their shifts, either individually or as part of a group. Further, those clergy volunteering at Ground Zero and at the morgue were strongly encouraged and given the opportunity to be formally debriefed by a trained mental-health worker near the formal end of the recovery work (American Red Cross, 1995; McCarroll et al.,1993; Ursano and McCarroll, 1990). In the United States there are approximately 450,000 trained emergency medical workers; 75,000 emergency nurses (McCammon and Murphy, 1995); 10,000 hospital chaplains (VandeCreek and Burton, 2002); 353,000 community-based clergy (U.S. Department of Labor, 1998); and tens of thousands of volunteers from the Red Cross and other agencies that respond to people in disaster situations. These individuals can experience frequent, repetitive, and cumulative exposure to trauma and high levels of extreme stress. Many front-line health and religious professionals suffer from secondary psychological trauma or compassion fatigue (Figley, 1995, 2002). Hence, it is important that chaplains and others be able to recognize and understand compassion fatigue in themselves (Stamm, 1999, 2002). The present study was designed to examine compassion fatigue and burnout among clergy and disaster relief workers after September 11th. We hypothesized that this compassion fatigue and burnout would be pronounced in clergy and other relief workers directly exposed to the physical destruction at Ground Zero and/or the emotional and spiritual suffering of working with the families of the individuals who died in the terrorist attacks. Further, we hypothesized that compassion fatigue and burnout would be ameliorated by exposure to the American Red Cross debriefing procedures.