Occupational grief and self-compassion among intensive care unit nurses in tertiary hospitals: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Intensive care unit (ICU) nurses frequently encounter patient suffering and death and may develop occupational grief. Evidence on occupational grief and its association with self-compassion among ICU nurses in China remains limited. Objective: To describe occupational grief among ICU nurses in tertiary hospitals and examine its relationship with self-compassion. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 355 ICU nurses from nine tertiary hospitals in Shandong, China, were recruited by cluster sampling between January and February 2024. Participants completed a general information questionnaire, the Grief State Scale for Nurses, and the Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form. Descriptive statistics, Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses, reliability testing, confirmatory factor analysis, dimension-level non-parametric comparisons, and hierarchical linear regression were performed. Results: The mean occupational grief score was 35.22 ± 11.19, and the item mean score was 2.07 ± 0.66. The mean self-compassion score was 37.30 ± 4.03, and the item mean score was 3.11 ± 0.34. Occupational grief was negatively correlated with self-compassion ( Conclusion: Occupational grief among ICU nurses was relatively mild based on item mean scores, and Self-compassion was independently associated with occupational grief. Measurement and personality-type findings should be interpreted cautiously, and causal effects require confirmation in longitudinal and intervention studies.