Relationship Between Psychological Distress, Burnout and Work Engagement in Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Objective: The psychological distress that the COVID-19 pandemic has produced has generated negative effects on workers, and in one way or another this has affected their work engagement within companies. The aim of this research was to assess the relationship between psychological distress, burnout and work engagement in workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: A systematic review was carried out following the PRISMA methodology, taking articles from the Scopus, Pubmed, and Web of Science databases from the beginning of the pandemic until November 2022. The methodological quality was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tools for non-randomised studies.Results: 24 articles were selected. All the articles found an association between psychological distress, burnout or other factors and work engagement.Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on work engagement and a negative relationship with psychological distress and burnout, hence the importance of companies taking measures to minimise levels of psychological distress and burnout.

Work engagement and sense of coherence as predictors of psychological distress during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile

“…In the latter country, it has been suggested that this effect on mental health could be due to fear of the collapse of the health system, with an increased workload that affected even areas outside those directly caring for the infected, and especially women because of the gender imbalance [ 47 ]. The higher percentage of PD among women is consistent with the findings of the present study and many others [ 26 ].…”

“…It is known that the improvement of the work environment generates an increase in SOC and, with it, an improvement in the level of health is achieved [ 58 ]. A somewhat smaller association between work engagement and the level of PD has been found, which has also been reported in many other previous studies [ 26 ].…”

“…The efficient application of coping strategies, including sense of coherence, can help people manage psychologically demanding events and may play a key role in preventing mental illnesses [ 6 , 25 ]. Alternatively, psychological distress can negatively affect work engagement [ 26 ], which is a psychological reaction that arises when individual characteristics interact with the work environment, and which is based on the Job Demands-Resources Model [ 10 , 11 ].…”

Work engagement of healthcare workers in maternal and child health institutions in the post-COVID-19 era: an online cross-sectional study.

“…In this study, we investigated whether work engagement will change according to demographic and job characteristics in the post COVID-19 era. Although some studies have stated that variables such as age, gender, marital status, education, and work years were in uencing factors for work engagement, our research failed to fully established such relationship 35,38,39 . In our study, regression analysis showed that only gender was associated with absorption.…”

“…The majority of participants in this study reported moderate and high levels of work engagement, with only a small proportion of employees exhibit low work engagement, similar to previous studies 2,18,33,34 . Although the COVID-19 has had a negative impact on the work engagement of healthcare workers, the impact is not obvious 35 . The possible reason is that the role played by healthcare workers in the epidemic has been highly recognized by society, and they feel a strong sense of belonging, good self-esteem, and self-ful llment, thereby improving or maintaining their work engagement.…”