Van Hooser J Preston, Pekow Cynthia, Nguyen Holly M, D'Urso Dominic M, Kerner Sara E, Thompson-Iritani Sally
Office of the Animal Welfare, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA, United States.
Front Vet Sci. 2021 Nov 8;8:731003. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2021.731003. eCollection 2021.
Laboratory Animal Professionals experience many positive and rewarding interactions when caring for and working with research animals. However, these professionals also may experience conflicting feelings and exhaustion when the work is stressful due to factors such as limited resources, making end of life decisions, dealing with conflicting priorities, and negotiating animal care priorities with colleagues. These stresses may be further complicated by each individual's self-understanding and emotional investment in the human-animal bond. The term used for this type of complex emotional conflict and exhaustion is Compassion Fatigue. Compassion Fatigue in the Laboratory Animal Science setting is a combination of physical, emotional and psychological depletion associated with working with and caring for animals and their well-being in a research environment. The University of Washington has developed a Compassion in Science Program called Dare2Care which emphasizes self-care and helps Laboratory Animal Professionals identify stress factors and work toward a personal solution to relieve stress. The first step in developing a resiliency program is to assess the current culture and needs of the organization. At an institutional level we identified that we needed increased communication concerning study endpoints, as well as identified individuals with whom affected personnel can talk about personal concerns. We also implemented community events to reflect on the positive aspects of this field of work. We improved the physical work environment, and provided outlets established for personnel to express feelings via written word or artistically. Lastly, we started working with our Center for One Health to encompass a holisitic approach to the occupational health of our animal caregivers. One health is the relationship and interplay between people, animals and the environment and we needed to include emotional well-being in our assessment of the health of our personnel. A question was added to our occupational health screening form to include additional health or workplace concerns (e.g., Compassion Fatigue) not covered by the questionnaire, and we added a component of Compassion Fatigue awareness in our training program. Here we review the importance of identifying Compassion Fatigue in the animal research setting, focus on developing a compassion resiliency culture and provide tools and coping strategies to validate and strengthen the human-animal bond with research animals and to sustain the care that is necessary for both people and research animals.
实验动物专业人员在照顾实验动物并与之共事时，会经历许多积极且有意义的互动。然而，由于资源有限、做出安乐死决定、处理相互冲突的优先事项以及与同事协商动物护理优先事项等因素，当工作压力较大时，这些专业人员也可能会产生矛盾情绪和疲惫感。每个人对人 - 动物关系的自我认知和情感投入可能会使这些压力进一步复杂化。用于描述这种复杂的情感冲突和疲惫的术语是“同情疲劳”。实验动物科学环境中的同情疲劳是指在研究环境中与动物打交道并照顾它们及其福祉时，身体、情感和心理上的消耗。华盛顿大学开发了一个名为“敢于关爱”的科学关怀项目，该项目强调自我关怀，并帮助实验动物专业人员识别压力因素，努力寻求个人解决方案以缓解压力。制定复原力计划的第一步是评估组织当前的文化和需求。在机构层面，我们发现需要加强关于研究终点的沟通，并确定受影响人员可以与之谈论个人担忧的人员。我们还举办了社区活动，以反思这项工作领域的积极方面。我们改善了实际工作环境，并为人员提供了通过书面文字或艺术形式表达感受的途径。最后，我们开始与我们的“同一健康”中心合作，采用整体方法来关注动物护理人员的职业健康。同一健康是指人、动物和环境之间的关系及相互作用，我们需要在评估员工健康时将情感健康纳入其中。我们在职业健康筛查表中添加了一个问题，以纳入问卷未涵盖的其他健康或工作场所问题（例如同情疲劳），并且在我们的培训项目中增加了同情疲劳意识的内容。在此，我们回顾在动物研究环境中识别同情疲劳的重要性，专注于培养同情复原力文化，并提供工具和应对策略，以验证和加强与实验动物的人 - 动物关系，并维持对人和实验动物都必要的护理。
