OCCUPATION AND HEALTH ›› 2026, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (17): 2381-2387.

• Treatise——Epidemiology and Preventive Health Care • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Impact of self-compassion on depression among psychological counselors and the chain mediating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy and compassion fatigue

JIANG Yunxia1,2, GUO Fei1(), CHEN Zhiyan1   

  1. 1 State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Science and Mental HealthInstitute of Psychology,Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing 100101, China
    2 Department of PsychologyUniversity of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing 100049, China
  • Received:2025-07-11 Revised:2025-09-18 Online:2026-09-01 Published:2026-08-14
  • Contact: GUO Fei E-mail:guof@psych.ac.cn

Abstract:

Objective To investigate the influence of self-compassion on depression among psychological counselors,and to explore the mediating roles of regulatory emotional self-efficacy and compassion fatigue,in order to provide reference for improving the depression status of psychological counselors and ensuring occupational mental health. Methods A convenient sampling method was used to conduct a questionnaire survey on 312 psychological counselors from October to December 2024 using general information questionnaire,self-compassion scale,regulatory emotional self-efficacy scale,the Chinese version of compassion fatigue short scale and center for epidemiologic studies depression scale,and the data were analyzed. Results The self-compassion score[MP25P75)] was 44.00(41.00,49.00)points,the regulatory emotional self-efficacy score was 44.50(42.00,48.00)points,the compassion fatigue score was 23.00(17.00,30.00)points and the depression score was 8.00(5.00,10.00)points. The self-compassion was positively correlated with regulatory emotional self-efficacy(r>0,P<0.01),and negatively correlated with compassion fatigue and depression(r<0,both P<0.01). The regulatory emotional self-efficacy was negatively correlated with compassion fatigue and depression(r<0,both P<0.01). The compassion fatigue was positively correlated with depression(r>0,P<0.01). There was a mediating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy and compassion fatigue between self-compassion and depression among psychological counselors, with a total indirect effect value of -0.195,accounting for 38.09% of the total effect. The mediating effect of compassion fatigue on depression accounts for 18.55%,and the chain mediating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy and compassion fatigue accounts for 9.96%. Conclusion Regulatory emotional self-efficacy and compassion fatigue of psychological counselors exert multiple mediating effects on the relationship between self-compassion and depression.

Key words: Psychological counselor, Self-compassion, Regulatory emotional self-efficacy, Compassion fatigue, Depression

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