Exploring Emotional Labor in the Nurse Educator Role

Emotional labor, defined as the work associated with suppression of true emotions in a difficult environment, task or encounter, can lead to compassion fatigue and burnout.The relationships between emotional labor, compassion fatigue and burnout have been described and studied in clinical nursing.The components of emotional labor in the nurse educator role have not been studied at length.Identifying the components of nurse educator duties that contribute to emotional labor has the potential to assist nursing education leaders in developing strategies to address this negative aspect of the role.Semi-structured interviews were conducted in this interpretive description qualitative study to explore the perceptions of nurse educators regarding which components of daily work and the work environment contribute to emotional labor.