From Resilience to Burnout in Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Emergency: The Role of the Ability to Tolerate Uncertainty

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has placed extraordinary demands upon healthcare systems worldwide. Italy's hospitals have been among the most severely overwhelmed, and as a result, Italian healthcare workers' (HCWs) well-being has been at risk. The aim of this study is to explore the relationships between dimensions of burnout and various psychological features among Italian healthcare workers (HCWs) during the COVID-19 emergency. A group of 267 HCWs from a hospital in the Lazio Region completed self-administered questionnaires online through Google Forms, including the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Resilience Scale, and Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale Short Form (IU). Cluster analysis highlighted two opposite burnout risk profiles: low burnout and high-risk burnout. The high-risk group had lower resilience and greater difficulties in tolerating the uncertainty than the low-burnout group. A set of general linear models confirmed that both IU subscales, prospective and inhibition, moderated the relationship between resilience and burnout (specifically in the depersonalization dimension). In conclusion, the results showed that individual levels of resilience and one's ability to tolerate uncertainty have been significant factors in determining the impact of the COVID-19 emergency on HCWs. The use of emotional strategies that allow individuals to stay in a critical situation without the need to control it appears to protect against burnout in these circumstances.

Impact of COVID‐19 on the mental health in a cohort of Italian rehabilitation healthcare workers

“…The third component of the MBI scale, Personal Accomplishment, detects no statistically significant difference on the average score ( p = 0.66). This data is in line with the available literature: Di Trani et al 45 found a higher level of MBI Personal Accomplishment in emergency professionals than in chronicity operators. In the same research, the “emergency group” expressed more feelings of competence, productivity, and successful achievement in one's work than the chronicity and service group.…”

Associations between Personality Traits, Intolerance of Uncertainty, Coping Strategies, and Stress in Italian Frontline and Non-Frontline HCWs during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Multi-Group Path-Analysis

“…All pandemics, including the one caused by COVID-19, being unexpected and unpredictable events, which affect large numbers of people, are sources of stress (i.e., they are cataclysmic stressors, according to Lazarus and Cohen's definition [42]), and uncertainty among both ordinary people and HCWs [43][44][45]. If ordinary people experience "uncertainty about getting infected, uncertainty about the seriousness of the infection, uncertainty about whether the people around you are infected, uncertainty about whether objects or surfaces (e.g., money, doorknobs) are infected, uncertainty about the optimal type of treatment or protective measures, and uncertainty about whether a pandemic is truly over" [44] (p. 43), HCWs experience also other types of uncertainty (both professional and personal), that differ during the different stages of virus diffusion.…”

“…"Measures"). It can be considered as a sub-trait of anxiety [44] (that is, in its turn, a facet of neuroticism), which has often been found in association with stress, distress, insomnia, psychosomatic symptoms, and other clinical conditions in several recent studies carried out on COVID-19 among the general population and HCWs (e.g., [45,[51][52][53][54][55][56]). It is a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral tendency to react negatively to uncertain or ambiguous situations and unpredictable future events [57,58], which biases information processing, leading to faulty appraisals of threat, and reduces coping abilities [59].…”

Prevalence and Factors Associated With Burnout of Frontline Healthcare Workers in Fighting Against the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence From China

“…According to MD Trani, 56% of HCWs in Italy showed EE Abbreviations: COVID-19, Novel coronavirus disease; HCW, Healthcare worker; MBI scale, Maslach Burnout Inventory scale; EE, emotional exhaustion; DP, depersonalization; PA, personal accomplishment; PPE, personal protective equipment; CR, composite reliability; AVE, average variance extracted. (Di Trani et al, 2021). In Portugal, Duarte I et al concluded that more than half of HCWs had symptoms of personal burnout (Duarte et al, 2020).…”