Mental Health, Burnout, and Job Stressors Among Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Iran: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Abstract

IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic has caused increasing levels of mental health problems such as anxiety and depression among doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers in hospitals or health centers. The main objective of this study was to assess the mental health, job stressors, and burnout among healthcare workers in Iran.Materials and MethodsA cross-sectional study was performed in the primary healthcare centers and hospitals affiliated with six of the medical universities in Iran. The selection of participants was done using multi-center convenient sampling. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, and Copenhagen Burnout Inventory were used for gathering data through an online platform. Data related to job stressors were obtained using a validated checklist. Data analysis was performed using Chi-square and multiple regression tests and the phi coefficient.ResultsThe results of our study showed that 53% of the healthcare workers of the hospitals and primary healthcare centers enrolled in our study either had generalized anxiety disorder or major depressive disorder or both disorders. Moderate and high levels of burnout were seen among 48.9% of the study participants. The prevalence of mental disorders and burnout were significantly higher among the female healthcare workers compared to the male (p = 0.0001) and a higher rate of mental disorder and burnout was also seen among healthcare workers of hospitals compared to those working in primary healthcare centers (p = 0.024). “Worry about children and old members of family,” “family worries for my health condition” and “lack of specific effective treatment for COVID-19” were found to be predictive of mental disorder and burnout. The most prevalent job stressor among the total sample was “low payment or income during the COVID-19 period”.ConclusionThe results of our study revealed high psychological distress and burnout among healthcare workers of the hospitals during the fourth peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran. This study highlights the need for health officials to pay attention to the job stressors of healthcare workers and obliges them to perform effective interventions to address their needs and concerns.

An investigation of the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder, turnover intention and psychological resilience among medical staff in a public hospital in China during the outbreak of the omicron variant in the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022

“…Similar to the results from the study by Yasmin et al (33), the present study concluded that the incidence of PTSD was higher among medical personnel with children. Numerous studies have reported increased mental health risks associated with the presence of children in the family during COVID-19 (34)(35)(36), and concerns about children's health potentially contribute to higher rates of PTSD among medical staff in families with children because children have relatively less immunity than adults.…”

How Do COVID-19 Risk, Life-Safety Risk, Job Insecurity, and Work–Family Conflict Affect Miner Performance? Health-Anxiety and Job-Anxiety Perspectives

“…The hazards associated with COVID-19 make people less focused on tasks linked to work, dramatically lowering their overall job performance [ 31 ]. Moreover, the COVID-19 epidemic disrupts regular operations and may increase people’s workloads and burdens at work, which lowers job performance [ 32 ]. Therefore, the following hypotheses were constructed:…”

Pandemic management impacts Slovak health care workers’ quality of life during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Our study showed that the negative impact of the pandemic on mental well-being QoL may be explained by increased work stress (fear, workload, pressure, exhaustion), which may cause psychological sequelae (anxiety, depression, depersonalisation, posttraumatic stress syndrome or disorder) and sleep difficulties [ 24 – 35 ]. Poor mental well-being and a high level of exhaustion could even lead to burnout or job leaving intentions [ 27 , 34 , 36 – 40 ]. There are also studies showing that their poor mental well-being even before the pandemic strongly co-influenced other domains of QoL, and this could even have been exacerbated by the pandemic situation [ 14 , 37 , 38 ].…”

“…There are also studies showing that their poor mental well-being even before the pandemic strongly co-influenced other domains of QoL, and this could even have been exacerbated by the pandemic situation [ 14 , 37 , 38 ]. The underlying mechanism may regard family imbalance due to the increased need to care and worry about children or for the elderly, family worries regarding the own health condition, home-schooling, social isolation, stigmatisation and limited leisure activities outside [ 13 , 24 , 28 , 40 , 41 ], thus affecting family life. Similarly, difficulties with food supplies, shopping, cooking and maintaining physical distance [ 28 , 41 ] may have decrease housekeeping QoL as well.…”

“…First, they might perceive essential work stress because of the origin of their work, such as long hours and night shifts, a heavy workload (responsibilities, patients, pressure loads), dealing with pain and emotional distress, and facing a shortage of HCWs [ 14 , 36 , 37 ]. Second, they may have experienced additional PanMan stress due to new pandemic occupational changes, such as redeployment (loss of team and routine), no possibility of taking proper breaks or time off, a lack of preparedness, non-efficient management, poor working conditions (safety concerns, lack of and use of PPE, disinformation, ambiguity of performance), lack of effective treatments specifically for COVID-19, and death of their patients [ 10 , 13 , 25 , 30 – 32 , 40 , 41 , 43 ]. Evidently, experiencing these various stressful work and PanMan circumstances may have accumulated and thus could have had an impact on all domains of QoL.…”