The purpose of this study was to identify the predictors of burnout in healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected from March to June in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, from employees of two Romanian hospitals. Five hundred and twenty-three healthcare workers completed a series of questionnaires that measured burnout, job demands, job resources, and personal resources. Among the respondents, 14.5% had a clinical level of exhaustion (the central component of burnout). Three job demands (work–family conflict, lack of preparedness/scope of practice, emotional demands), three job resources (training, professional development, and continuing education; supervision, recognition, and feedback; autonomy and control), and one personal resource (self-efficacy) were significant predictors of burnout, explaining together 37% of the variance in healthcare workers’ burnout. Based on our results, psychological interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic for healthcare employees should focus primarily on these demands and resources.
Previous studies have shown an association between job demands and burnout in medical staff during the pandemic. However, these studies have ignored the possibility of loss cycle occurrence during the crisis. In order to address this gap, the aim of this study was to test the mediating role of burnout in the positive relationship between job demands and the self-undermining of healthcare employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-undermining represents the set of behaviors that generate obstacles and diminish performance (e.g., careless mistakes, generating interpersonal conflicts, poor communication), and it has been suggested that this variable could explain the loss cycle between demands and burnout (the phenomenon in which demands increase burnout, which in turn leads to even greater demands). A total of 523 healthcare workers from two Romanian hospitals (e.g., physicians, nurses, stretcher-bearers) completed a self-report questionnaire during the COVID-19 outbreak that included three job demands, burnout, and self-undermining. Burnout mediated the positive relationship between two demands (work–family conflict; lack of equipment and supplies) and self-undermining. These results may provide a preliminary indication for the existence of loss cycles, supporting the assumptions of the job demands-resources theory. Moreover, the results highlight the risk of loss cycle occurrences for healthcare employees during outbreaks.
Objectives. The aim of this study was to investigate a series of possible predictors for the work engagement of Romanian healthcare workers. Materials and methods. A sample consisting of 222 Romanian healthcare employees from a hospital completed a questionnaire measuring work engagement, six job resources (autonomy and control; supervision, recognition, and feedback; training, professional development, and continuing education; staffing and time; technology; social support), and two personal resources (self-efficacy and optimism). Outcomes. Training, professional development, and continuing education were the job resources that correlated most strongly with work engagement. However, of all study variables, optimism, a personal resource, correlated most strongly with work engagement. All job resources and personal resources included in the study explained 31% of the variance of work engagement. Conclusions. According to the research results, it is possible for specialists in the field of work psychology to increase the level of healthcare employees’ work engagement by increasing their job and personal resources.
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