Overview of Guidance and Counseling Teachers’ Compassion Fatigue and its Correlation With Empathy in Individual Counseling Service

Abstract

Empathy is an essential quality for counselors when delivering counseling services, as it allows them to connect with their clients on a deeper level. However, it's recognized that empathy levels can fluctuate, with one potential factor being the onset of compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue refers to the exhaustion experienced by individuals providing care and attention to those they're assisting, a phenomenon commonly observed among social workers like counselors. This research seeks to examine the impact of compassion fatigue on empathy within the context of counseling services. This research employed a correlational methodology, utilizing the Pearson Correlation formula. The study population comprised guidance and counseling teachers from secondary schools in Pekanbaru city. This research used a random sampling technique and convenience sampling technique for a total of 36 people form 90 populations. The instrument used was a Likert scale with 5 closed model answer choices. The fatigue level among guidance and counseling teachers in secondary schools of Pekanbaru City falls within the medium category at 66.66%, with the remaining 33.33% categorized as low. The empathy level among guidance and counseling teachers is predominantly in the very high category, accounting for 47.22%, while the remaining 52.77% falls within the high category. The correlation analysis indicates a significant inverse relationship between compassion fatigue and the empathy levels of guidance and counseling teachers in Pekanbaru City secondary schools. This is substantiated by a correlation coefficient of -.604. At a significance level of 0.01, the statistical analysis confirms the significance of this relationship, as evidenced by the p-value of 0.00, which is below the threshold of 0.05.This has shown that guidance and counselling teachers can still carry out their role well in counselling services, even though they have experienced compassion fatigue on average in the moderate category.