Abstract
Due to their continuous contact with pain and death, healthcare workers have one of the most stressful professions. Pain and death are more common in nursing homes. During the health crisis associated with COVID-19, these work centers have been characterized as spaces of high vulnerability to infection for the elderly, with a high mortality rate. This research aims to determine how the health crisis associated with COVID-19 has influenced healthcare professionals working in nursing homes for the elderly. Using a quantitative and cross-sectional method, the research was developed in residential centers in the Region of Murcia (Spain) during the second wave of the pandemic. A survey design based mainly on the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was employed. MBI measures three subscales: emotional burnout, depersonalization, and self-fulfillment. The results show that 6.4% of the respondents were burned out, 53.8% of the participants were emotionally exhausted, 35.1% were found to suffer from depersonalization, and in the case of personal development, the respondents showed a low level of 15.6%. This study shows the need to consider the establishment, in the academic environment, of training programs for health professionals related to coping with, managing, and identifying stress, especially in adverse circumstances. Similarly, in the professional field, it is necessary to develop strategies to prevent stress and anxiety in the workplace. The development of training programs for this purpose is essential for achieving a sustainable work context.
Highlights
The appearance at the end of 2019 of the coronavirus (SAR-CoV-2) in Wuhan (China), which provoked the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic, necessitated a reorganization of all social, medical, political, cultural, and individual scenarios all over the world
Recent studies [2,3,4,5,6] have shown that working in the COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant psychosocial impact on health professionals, especially those who work in more fragile contexts, with long working hours, without adequate Personal Protection
There has been a lot of research on stress and burnout, since long-term care for dependent elderly people can negatively affect people’s well-being and health [36], since it is a physically and emotionally demanding occupation
Summary
The appearance at the end of 2019 of the coronavirus (SAR-CoV-2) in Wuhan (China), which provoked the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic, necessitated a reorganization of all social, medical, political, cultural, and individual scenarios all over the world. 30 January 2020, when the World Health Organization called it a “public health emergency of international concern” [1], terror and panic gripped the world’s population, mainly because of the rapid spread and virulence of the virus, especially among the most vulnerable healthcare population: the sick and the elderly. This means that many people were the hardest hit by COVID-19 in the first wave. The main psychosocial risks are stress, burnout, and violence, which affect individuals physiologically, emotionally, cognitively, socially, or physically and can induce absenteeism and abandonment of work [7]. Previous studies on burnout in health professionals have been able to relate certain symptoms of different disorders, such as mood, anxiety, and depression [30,31,32,33], affecting the workplace, and the social and family environment [34,35].
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