Article # 7 November 2025

 Critical Event Debriefing: Impacts on Clinical Practice and                                   Implication for Oncology Nurses 

February 2024 • Volume 28, number 1, pages 33 - 41 • DOI: 10.1188/24.CJON.33-41 

Molly Joyce, and Joanne Itano 


Background: The complexity of caring for patients with cancer has a direct impact on oncology nurses. When a patient with cancer experiences a critical health event, oncology nurses may have concerns about their ability to provide high-quality care for patients in the current healthcare environment. These concerns can negatively affect nurses’ emotional well-being and lead to compassion fatigue and burnout. 

Objectives: This article aims to examine critical event debriefing and identify ways oncology nurses can implement a critical event debriefing framework into their clinical practice. 

Methods: A literature search was conducted in CINAHL® and PubMed® databases for articles related to critical event debriefing and compassion fatigue and burnout among oncology nurse case study demonstrates the use of critical event debriefing on an oncology unit.


Findings: Critical event debriefing frameworks can enhance teamwork, help initiate process improvements, and offer psychological support to improve emotional well-being. Additional research is needed about the use of critical event debriefing as a solution to compassion fatigue and burnout among oncology nurses. 

Implications for Practice and Research: The positive effects of clinical debriefing on emotional well-being, teamwork, and process enhancement indicate that it plays an important role in oncology nursing to improve clinical practice. More research is needed about critical event debriefing in oncology settings to evaluate how debriefing can most effectively improve emotional well-being and reduce problems such as compassion fatigue and burnout. Critical event debriefing frameworks have been shown to be effective and easy to implement, but their use has not been studied on hematology or oncology units specifically. Future studies are needed on compassion fatigue and burnout among oncology nurses that focus on clinical debriefing as a means to reduce these potential adverse effects and keep oncology nurses engaged in the care of patients with cancer 


Conclusion: As the treatment landscape evolves and patients live longer with cancer, oncology nursing will continue to be a challenging specialty. Meeting these challenges with adequate protective measures can ensure that oncology nurses feel supported to perform their jobs at a high level and maintain their emotional well-being by preventing adverse outcomes such as compassion fatigue or burnout. Debriefing after a patient experiences a critical or traumatic event offers many protective measures for nurses, such as better emotional support, enhanced teamwork, and continual opportunities to improve their practice environment. 


Discussion Starting Points: 

Please choose two for your response:

How does this research article compare to our practice, policy and or procedure?

What are the advantages and disadvantages to the proposed recommendations in the article?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of implementing the article recommendations on your unit and/or hospital?

Was the correct method used? Why or why not?



Comments

  1. Mila Grace “Mimi” Sumulong November 5, 2025 at 9:58 AM

    How does this research article compare to our practice, policy and or procedure?
    Our hospital currently does not have a "Critical Event Debriefing" for Oncology nurses. Knowing that there is current research about it that has been tested into practice would be very applicable to our unit especially that the end result would have a very positive outcome like improving teamwork and preventing caregiver fatigue and burnout.

    What are the advantages and disadvantages of implementing the article recommendations on your unit and/or hospital?
    As a nurse working on an Oncology unit for a long time, I can identify several critical events that are common such a patient demise just days after receiving chemo treatments or a patient receiving chemo treatment for the first time and having some adverse reactions. Knowing that we currently have a generation of inexperience oncology nurses, implementing a critical event debriefing would be very helpful especially that one of its implications is to improve oncology nurses' well-being, teamwork and workflow process and education.
    The advantages that I can see in the current situation that we have in our unit is we don't have enough experience oncology nurses that can qualify as facilitators every single shift and as of now will not be feasible.

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