Impact and resiliency of the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare providers and their household members

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on the health of healthcare providers and their families. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the resiliency of frontline healthcare providers and their household members. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2 different medical centers. The Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) assessed resiliency, and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) assessed subjective self-reported distress caused by traumatic events. Fisher tests was used hypothesis testing of differences in BRS and IES-R scores, between healthcare versus non-healthcare providers. Random forest models were used to identify the top contributors to BRS and IES-R scores. Participants also provided free text responses to describe main losses in social and support networks. A total of 1271 participants completed the surveys. The majority (95%) of the participants were self-identified healthcare providers. The mean (SD) BRS and IES-R score for non-healthcare providers (n = 63) were 20.1 (SD 5.2) and 24.0 (SD 16.4), respectively. The average score of IES-R indicated a concern for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The average score of the BRS was under the range of normal resilience (18–25.9). There were no statistically significant differences in resiliency (p = 0.90) and impact of event (p = 0.59) between healthcare and non-healthcare provider household members. Having someone to confide in is one of the most important factors contributing to resiliency and impact of event. The average IES-R score suggested that all participants were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrated the same level of resiliency.