Abstract

The professional quality of life of psychological therapy practitioners can be conceptualised within a compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue framework. Compassion fatigue has detrimental impacts on practitioners, organisations and patient care, whereas compassion satisfaction leads to positive outcomes. Psychological flexibility is purportedly a key resilience process associated with greater compassion satisfaction and lower compassion fatigue for healthcare professionals. However, no existing research has explored this association over a longitudinal trajectory for healthcare workers and specifically newly qualified psychological therapy practitioners. This study aimed to examine whether psychological flexibility prospectively predicts levels of compassion fatigue (inclusive of burnout and secondary traumatic stress) and compassion satisfaction in newly qualified psychological therapy practitioners. Using a prospective cohort longitudinal design, fifty-six trainee psychological therapy practitioners were recruited to complete an online survey at three timepoints pre- and post-qualification over eight-months. Forty-two and thirty-eight participants completed the survey at timepoints two and three respectively. The survey comprised a demographic questionnaire and measures of psychological flexibility, professional quality of life and workplace factors. Multilevel modelling revealed that higher prospective levels of psychological flexibility predicted higher levels of compassion satisfaction and lower levels of burnout and secondary traumatic stress at all timepoints. This study offers evidence suggesting a predictive association between psychological flexibility and professional quality of life outcomes for psychological therapy practitioners. In the context of broader empirical and conceptual literature, current findings invite further robust research examining whether psychological flexibility can predict and influence professional quality of life.