The Role of Healthcare Professionals’ Passion in Predicting Secondary Traumatic Stress and Posttraumatic Growth in the Face of COVID-19: A Longitudinal Approach

Abstract

COVID-19 has increased the likelihood of healthcare professionals suffering from Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). However, the difficulty of this crisis may lead these professionals to display personal resources, such as harmonious passion, that could be involved in posttraumatic growth. The goal of this study is to examine the STS and posttraumatic growth among healthcare professionals and the demands and resources related to COVID-19. A longitudinal study was carried out in April 2020 (T1) and December 2020 (T2). The participants were 172 health professionals from different health institutions and they reported their workload, fear of contagion, lack of staff and personal protection equipment (PPE), harmonious passion, STS and posttraumatic growth. The results revealed that workload and fear of contagion in T2 were positive predictors for STS, whereas harmonious passion was a negative predictor. Fear of contagion of both times seemed to positively predict posttraumatic growth, as well as harmonious passion. One moderation effect was found concerning the lack of staff/PPE, as posttraumatic growth was higher when the workload was high, especially in those with a high lack of staff/PPE. All in all, these findings pointed out the need for preventative measures to protect these professionals from long-term negative consequences.

Finding the positives from the COVID-19 pandemic: factors associated with posttraumatic growth among nurses in Hong Kong

“…Using the same measurement scale (PTGI-SF), our sample reported a similar mean score in PTG with dental practitioners in Israel, France, and Canada (Uzil et al, 2021 ), psychotherapists in the United States (Aafjies-van Doorn, Bekes, Luo, Prout, & Hoffman, 2021 ), and nurses working in the Australian acute care sector (Aggar et al, 2021 ) during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the score was lower than those reported in Chinese and Taiwanese nurses coping with the COVID-19 pandemic (Chen et al, 2020 ) and healthcare professionals in Spain (Moreno-Jimenez et al, 2021 ). Those findings imply that Hong Kong’s relative success in combating COVID-19 (indicated by its lower COVID-19 incidence and death rates) may not have led nurses to experience more PTG in comparison to their health professionals in other countries.…”

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

“…Workers have often experienced PTG through “deliberate rumination”, a process of seeking value and meaning to their own experience [ 30 , 32 ] or through the tendency to positively reappraise events [ 60 ]. Fear of contagion and awareness of the risk were found to be associated with PTG [ 30 , 37 ] while lack of personal accomplishment was a key negative influence factor [ 36 ]. In another study [ 33 ], a combination of adaptive coping strategies predicted the level of PTG, as described also by study [ 58 ]; passion for work was also a determinant for the development of PTG [ 37 ].…”

“…Fear of contagion and awareness of the risk were found to be associated with PTG [ 30 , 37 ] while lack of personal accomplishment was a key negative influence factor [ 36 ]. In another study [ 33 ], a combination of adaptive coping strategies predicted the level of PTG, as described also by study [ 58 ]; passion for work was also a determinant for the development of PTG [ 37 ]. Other personal factors associated with PTG were sex, fertility and marital status [ 58 ].…”

“…Another limitation could lie in the heterogeneity of the measurements and in the fact that most of the studies relied on self-report measures. Even if this review includes longitudinal studies that investigate PTG resilience and coping strategies (e.g., [ 37 , 39 , 75 ]), the majority of the studies employed a cross-sectional design, limiting the strength of the conclusions and the possibility of making causal inferences on the relationships between the variables. A further limitation concerns the lack of heterogeneity of occupations, with most of the research conducted in the healthcare domain with healthcare workers samples (e.g., nurses).…”

Identifying Psychosocial Risks and Protective Measures for Workers’ Mental Wellbeing at the Time of COVID-19: A Narrative Review

“…Anxiety, depression and stress were all psychological dimensions associated with the feeling of inappropriate work competence and the lack of adequate training [58]. At the same time, work impairment was negatively influenced by anxiety and depression [66]. Factors related to poor training correlated to more frequent depressive and anxiety symptoms, including having been redeployed without training or with unsatisfactory training [17,22,53,55].…”