Team:
Aaroolya Rajesh
Qinyu Hu
Sixin Lin
Zijin Wang
Context
A mutual interest in the broad umbrella of “compassion fatigue” and all the spaces it could potentially claim, brought us all together.
Compassion fatigue, which refers to the indifference that occurs after experiencing too much empathetic sympathy. For example, after responding too often or too many times to charitable appeals, indifference is expressed towards people in distress. It is most common in healthcare workers and charity organisations, but it can also occur in the public after they have received too much information about this type of assistance.
The Question
We realised that there are various ways that the term could be interpreted, so we decided to diverge into our individual research and converge in the end to come to a common intersection of interests. Upon preliminary research, we all came to the conclusion that we wanted to focus on compassion fatigue in the area of caregiving in the medical sector.
The point of enquiry that was identified in the process of research was:
What is the impact of caregiving on the caregiver?
Collaboration
We all come from different backgrounds - culturally and artistically.
The variety in backgrounds had an interesting effect on the progression of the project.
At times, it created a barrier in providing an open platform for ideas and discussions. At other times, it gave us an opportunity to have a cultural exchange of knowledge, which opened up our views about our topic.
Through a lot of trial and error, we were able to analyse and imbibe our strengths and weaknesses into the project. The combination of communication and design sensibilities was a crucial element in driving us towards an outcome.
Our Group Manifesto
Communication through Miro
Communication
Miro board was a great starting point for us, to be able to communicate beyond our languages.
After an initial brainstorming session, we started building a mind map and keyword cloud around our research based on the topic. Our research comprised of two parts:
Artistic research
Mind Mapping
Approach
Since our intent was to interview caregivers who took care of people with difficulties, we risked distressing them through our questioning. Our topic is sensitive in nature, and while we had a plan in place for how to approach the situation, we didn’t get approval on time to enact our plan on time.
The alternative option was to scale down our initial plan and output by taking research from existing platforms with verified sources to build an artistic response to our critical enquiry.Therefore,we decided to build on our work with secondary research, collecting existing literature and interview data.
Artistic research
Mind Mapping
Concept
By going through the available interview transcripts, we extracted having compassion fatigue was overwhelming and it caused the nurses to lose balance in their lives, a balance that they knew they desperately needed.
Based on our research, we decided to focus on the balance, or lack of it, that is the centre of a caregiver’s life.
Our output would be created with the intention of building recognition for caregiving as a profession and call for compassion from people outside the caregiver communities.
Social Life
Personal Life
Finances
Career
Mental Health
Physical Health
Inspiration
Ideation
Final Output
A toy/interactive installation that uses medical instruments and objects to depict the various aspects of a caregiver’s life, that affects and influences each other during the process of caregiving.
The aim of this product is to get people to come and see how a small shift in responsibilities or facets has an impact on the others, and in turn affecting the balance of the whole structure.
We hope to shed some light on the lives of the people supporting the affected and, hopefully, bring forth some compassion for them and their own life that takes a backseat in the process of caring.
Feedback
The overall response to our presentation was positive, with people coming to interact and ask more about the concept. Keeping in mind the question of distribution, we envision this project to work well in museums like the Hunterian museum, and as part of the Wellcome collection. Additionally, it could be placed in hospital waiting rooms to build more empathy in patients and carers alike, and act as a platform to initiate conversations about the responsibilities of caregiving from the start.
Process Video (please click the image to watch the video)
Bibliography
（1）Craig, C.D. and Sprang, G., 2010. Compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and burnout in a national sample of trauma treatment therapists. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 23(3), pp.319-339.
（2）Sinclair, S., Raffin-Bouchal, S., Venturato, L., Mijovic-Kondejewski, J. and Smith-MacDonald, L., 2017. Compassion fatigue: A meta-narrative review of the healthcare literature. International journal of nursing studies, 69, pp.9-24.
（3）Austin, W., Goble, E., Leier, B. and Byrne, P., 2009. Compassion fatigue: The experience of nurses. Ethics and Social Welfare, 3(2), pp.195-214.
（4）Showalter, S.E., 2010. Compassion fatigue: What is it? Why does it matter? Recognizing the symptoms, acknowledging the impact, developing the tools to prevent compassion fatigue, and strengthen the professional already suffering from the effects. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 27(4), pp.239-242.
(5) Orzeck.P and Silverman, M., 2008. “Recognizing Post-Caregiving as part of the caregiving career: Implications for Practice. Journal of Social Work Practice, 22(2), pp.211-220.
(6) Kramer, B.J., 1996. “Gain in the Caregiving experience: Where are we? What next?. The Gerontologist, 37(2), pp.218-232.
(7) Kleinman, Arthur. 2013. From illness as culture to caregiving as moral experience. New England Journal of Medicine 368: 1376-1377.
(8) www.youtube.com. (n.d.). A Day in the Life of a Caregiver. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs_7jWqSeIM.
(9) Smith, P. (2017). How to manage compassion fatigue in caregiving | patricia smith | tedxsanjuanisland. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7keppA8XRas.
(10) Noora Health. (2024). Caregiving: A bittersweet journey | The Companion. [online] Available at: https://noorahealth.org/thecompanion/caregiving-a-bittersweet-journey/ [Accessed 18 Mar. 2025].