Department of Psychiatry

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Browsing Department of Psychiatry by Author "Apio, Betty"

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    Emotional intelligence and compassion fatigue among psychotherapists in selected districts of Northern Uganda
    (South African Journal of Psychology, 2020) Kabunga, Amir; Anyolitho, Maxson Kenneth; Apio, Betty
    Globally, close to 50% of the professionals working with traumatised individuals have issues related to compassion fatigue. In Uganda, although compassion fatigue is prevalent among psychotherapists, there is limited evidence of relationship between emotional intelligence and compassion fatigue. This study set out to fill this gap. Data were collected from a random sample of 207 psychotherapists working in Northern Uganda, who completed Emotional Competency Inventory version-2.0 and Professional Quality of Life version-5 questionnaires. Chi-square and Fischer’s exact tests were used to analyse the data. Findings revealed that all the four elements of emotional intelligence (social awareness, self-awareness, self-management, and social skills) were inversely related to levels of compassion fatigue and were statistically significant at p < .0001. The study recommended that organisations offering psychotherapy services could focus on building emotional intelligence of their psychotherapists. Increasing emotional intelligence of psychotherapists is necessary to enable them deal more effectively, with their feelings and thus directly decrease the level of compassion fatigue thereby protecting their mental and physical health.
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    Emotional Intelligence as Predictor of Compassion Fatigue among Mental Health Practitioners
    (Open Access Library Journal, 2019) Kabunga, Amir; Apio, Betty; Anyolitho, Maxson Kenneth2
    More than half of the professionals working with vulnerable population in high-income countries suffer from compassion fatigue, which has detrimental effects on mental health practitioners’ wellbeing. This study was aimed at investigating the role of emotional intelligence in predicting compassion fatigue among mental health practitioners. Data collection was undertaken using surveys incorporating the Professional Quality of Life-5 and the Emotional Competency Inventory 2.0. Mental health practitioners from Northern Uganda participated with 207 respondents returning completed surveys. Data analysis procedures were undertaken using Fisher’s exact test and logistical regression. The statistical hypotheses were tested at a significance level of p ≤ 0.05. The results revealed that self-management (p = 0.003) and social awareness (p = 0.039) had a statistically significant effect on the prediction of compassion fatigue in mental health practitioners. The results equally indicated that respondents who recorded low levels of self-management were 4 times more likely to report compassion fatigue than those who had registered high levels of self-management. It was also found that a relative increase in social awareness was associated with a lower rating of compassion fatigue (OR = 1.24). Based on these findings, recommendations were made to include emotional intelligence as an integral component of training and incorporate emotional intelligence intervention techniques to benefit mental health practitioners in managing compassion fatigue.