Compassion under pressure: generational perspectives on burnout and inner resources in nursing practice.

This grounded theory study explores how burnout influences compassionate care among nurses, using Spain’s Balearic Islands as an illustrative context. Twenty-seven in-depth interviews with nursing students and professionals examined how nurses mobilise their inner resources, conceptualised through McGaghie’s “compassionate core” model, to sustain compassion under conditions of burnout. Core resources—including cognitive capacity, affective regulation, awareness of self and others, moral or spiritual grounding, and discernment—shaped how participants managed workplace pressures. Discernment and self-awareness emerged as particularly important in enabling nurses to calibrate compassionate responses and avoid emotional overextension. Although compassion was widely valued, the ways these inner resources were mobilised to use compassion differed across generations. Older nurses are often more driven by awareness of others and meeting patient needs, risking self-sacrifice and burnout, in contrast to younger nurses who tend to be more self-aware and consequently prioritise boundaries and personal well-being. Structural conditions such as staffing shortages, insecure contracts, and heavy workloads were also identified as barriers that constrained compassionate practice. By examining inner resources alongside generational context, this study extends McGaghie’s model and suggests that supporting the development of discernment and self-awareness may help sustain compassionate nursing practice while addressing burnout.