Stress, Resilience, and Coping of Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Objective To estimate the health care workers (HCWs) self-reported stress, resilience, and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to determine inter-professional differences. Participants and Methods An email survey was sent to 474 HCW at a Midwestern HealthCare facility between April 9, 2020 and April 30, 2020. A total of 311 (65.6%) responses were received by May 31, 2020. The survey utilized 3 validated instruments: Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), Brief Resilience Coping Scale (BRCS). Results Of the 311 responses, 302 were evaluated: 97 from nonmedical staff with patient contact (NMPC); 86 from nonmedical staff with no patient contact (NMNPC); 62 from medical doctors (MD), physician assistants (PA) and nurse practitioners (NP); and 57 from nurses. Significant differences were noted across job categories for stress and resilience, with nurses reporting highest PSS scores (effect estimates: −2.72, P = .009 for NMNPC; −2.50, P = .015 for NMPC; −3.21, P = .006 for MD/NP/PA respectively), and MD/NP/PA group with highest BRS scores: nurses (−0.31, P = .02); NMPC (−0.3333, P = .01); and NMNPC (−0.2828, P = .02). Younger personnel had higher stress (−1.59 per decade of age, P < .01) and more resilience (0.11 per decade of age, P = .002). Conclusion These self-reported data indicate that MD/NP/PA had the highest resilience scores and the nurses had highest stress levels. Efforts are warranted to include all HCWs in systematic stress mitigating interventions with particular attention to understand specific factors contributing to stress for the nursing team.

The Mediating Role of Resilience in the Relationship between Perceived Stress and Mental Health

“…Our results confirmed our first hypothesis, which posited that nurses’ perceived stress was positively correlated with symptoms of anxiety and depression. Similar to other studies, our analyses found that self-reported perceived stress correlated significantly with psychopathology [ 36 , 37 ], suggesting that nurses who perceived a high level of stress also perceived more symptoms of anxiety and depression. Remarkably, the levels of wellbeing among nurses during COVID-19, were even lower than among patients in the Spanish community mental health setting [ 21 ], and were lower than previous studies among nurses before and during COVID-19 [ 38 , 39 ].…”

Resilience, Coping Strategies and Posttraumatic Growth in the Workplace Following COVID-19: A Narrative Review on the Positive Aspects of Trauma

“…At the same time, resilience indicators (hardiness, vigor) and self-efficacy were found to be protective factors for good mental health outcomes [ 88 ]. As pointed out from previous research [ 89 ] we found some differences between different categories of healthcare professionals, with nurses experiencing less resilience and more occupational stress [ 65 ]. In our view, this may be partly related to the tremendous workload of nursing professionals in caring for COVID-19 patients, who have demanding needs (e.g., pronation in ICU).…”

“…Through resilience, emotion-focused strategies were negatively related to psychological distress directly and indirectly in a sample of Spanish nurses [ 42 ]. Resilience was negatively correlated with depression, stress and anxiety [ 44 , 46 , 54 , 65 , 68 , 71 ]. Age, work experience and level of education had a significant positive correlation with nurses’ resilience score [ 45 ].…”

“…As evidenced by previous research, psychological resilience is a fundamental variable in reducing and preventing the negative psychological effects of the pandemic [ 18 ]. In our review, we found that resilience is associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety and burnout [ 44 , 46 , 53 , 54 , 65 , 68 , 71 ]. Resilience improves personal growth and perceived professional benefits [ 33 , 53 ] and has a positive impact on work engagement even in non-healthcare workers [ 28 ].…”

Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Infection among Healthcare Workers of a German COVID-19 Treatment Center

“…In Germany, the pandemic has affected more than 3.5 million people by now and has led to at least 86,000 deaths [ 2 ]. Apart from causing considerable acute disease burden and mortality, the COVID-19 pandemic has also significant psychological consequences, causing anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders or physical symptoms including headaches, temporomandibular disorders or back pain [ 3 , 4 , 5 ].…”