Many patients who receive healthcare services have experienced distress or trauma. The healthcare practitioners treating these patients may experience emotional strain from providing empathy and compassion. This emotional strain may result in compassion fatigue of the healthcare practitioner. 

It is important that OT practitioners, their supervisors, and the organizations that hire them are aware of the signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue as well as potential coping mechanisms that can be used to develop resilience and compassion satisfaction. 

Additional research is needed specific to compassion fatigue experienced within the field of occupational therapy. 

Keywords: compassion fatigue, occupational therapy (OT) professionals, coping mechanisms, compassion satisfaction