Psychological impacts of the COVID‑19 on health care providers

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Psychological distress, functional impairment, reduced quality of life, and subjective well‑being were the most common negative psychological effects during the COVID‑19 outbreak. The present study was to investigate the impact of job stress, hospital resources, and fear of infection on job burnout of medical staff in Iran during the Covid‑19 pandemic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this cross‑sectional study, 223 hospital staff from several public and private hospitals in Tehran and Mazandaran provinces, selected through convenience sampling. The questionnaire included the validated “Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)”, “job stress scale (Parker and DeCotiis, 1983)”, and the questions about “hospital resources”, and “fear of infection” developed by the researcher wereused to collect data. Data were analyzed by correlation and regression methods using SPSS software. RESULTS: The results revealed that there was a significant difference in the scores on the burnout scale, in the dimension of emotional exhaustion, but the differences were not significant in the dimensions of depersonalization and self‑accomplishment. Also, job stress and fear of infection significantly correlated with job burnout in the dimensions of emotional exhaustion and personal‑accomplishment. However, the correlation between the adequacy of hospital resources and job burnout in these two dimensions was not significant. None of the three variables of the study showed a significant correlation with the dimension of depersonalization. CONCLUSION: It is essential to consider the package of psychological interventions which, primarily includes finding the sources of stress to resolve them through stress management programs, based on education and training in stress coping and management strategies.