Psychological distress and resilience in first responders and health care workers during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, first responders and health care workers faced elevated virus-related risks through prolonged contacts with the public. Research suggests that these workers already experienced lower levels of psychological well-being linked to occupational risks. Thus, the pandemic's impact might have particularly affected mental health in these groups. This paper analysed data from a large-scale Welsh population study (N = 12,989) from June to July 2020. Levels of psychological distress were compared across various occupations, including police, fire and rescue, and NHS health care workers. Resilience was also indexed, and its role considered as a protective factor for psychological distress. Surprisingly, health care workers reported lower distress levels than the general population. Further, fire and rescue and police groups had lower distress than most groups and significantly higher resilience. Within police officers, higher resilience levels were protective for distress. Fire and rescue workers were half as likely as others to report distress, even accounting for demographic factors and resilience. The findings offer an optimistic view of psychological resilience in these critical occupations. They illustrate potential benefits to one's mental health of playing a crucial societal role during crises and reiterate the importance of enhancing resilience within groups who encounter high-risk situations daily. Practitioner pointsOur findings provide evidence that health care workers and first responders showed lower levels of psychological distress than the general population during the first period of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. This may indicate that playing a critical role in society during an episode of crisis, and acting to help others, may be protective of one's own mental health. The research also provides an optimistic view of the psychological resilience of critical first responders and health care workers during a period early on in the COVID-19 pandemic (June-July 2020). ThisThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

The pandemic experience survey II: A second corpus of subjective reports of life under social restrictions during COVID-19 in the UK, Japan, and Mexico

“…Finally, it is worth mentioning that since publishing our initial report (1), much research continues to highlight the widespread negative impacts of the pandemic on mental health, 13). However, as was true at the time of our first report, the effects of this crisis have not been homogenous, with some positive changes also being noted (14)(15)(16)(17). In order to better make sense of this diversity of findings, future efforts may be directed at merging insights derived from populationlevel assessments with analysis of individual-centric subjective reports.…”

Prospering in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: The effects of PROSPER-based intervention on psychological outcomes among preschool teachers

“…Given its comprehensiveness, the PROSPER framework may be particularly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic; for example, a recent investigation ( Lee et al, 2022 ) has demonstrated that a 4-session PROSPER-based psychological intervention program enhanced positive relationships with peers among pre-service teachers in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also research showing how its dimensions, such as positive emotions ( Coifman et al, 2021 ), relationships ( Hutchinson et al, 2021 ), perceived competence ( Behzadnia & FatahModares, 2020 ), resilience ( Pink et al, 2021 ), strengths ( Datu, Yuen, et al, 2022 ; Datu, Valdez, et al, 2022 ), engagement ( Ployhart et al, 2021 ), and meaning in life ( Newman et al, 2021 ), operate as either protective psychological resources or key psychological outcomes during the pandemic. Furthermore, the present research organized well-being outcomes into two broad categories, namely intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions, given that previous literature ( Ryff, 1995 ) has offered a more nuanced approach in understanding the role of PWB's dimensions in different cultural contexts.…”

ENACTstudy: What has helped health and social care workers maintain their mental well‐being during theCOVID‐19 pandemic?

“…They also provide a basis on which to recommend interventions based on both individual and team‐based factors in attempts to assist HSCWs in coping with stressors, both personal and systemic, rather than focusing on either factor alone. Growing evidence shows that reinforcing social bonds among colleagues, collaborative working and building effective and cohesive teams are highly protective factors in maintaining and improving staff well‐being (Aughterson et al, 2021 ; Cogan et al, 2022 ; Greenberg & Tracy, 2020 ; Khalili et al, 2021 ; Pink et al, 2021 ). Management and leadership initiatives in mental health services should be targeted at creating this combination within the working environment and prioritising staff well‐being.…”