Abstract
Coping with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a significant risk factor for the psychological distress of health workers. Hence, this study explores the relationship between coping strategies used by healthcare and emergency workers in Italy to manage the stress factors related to the COVID-19 emergency, which may result in the risk of developing secondary trauma. We study differences between healthcare (n = 121) and emergency workers (n = 89) in terms of their coping strategies, emergency stress, and secondary trauma, as well as the relationships of these differences to demographic variables and other stress factors (Instructions and Equipment). For this purpose, we collected data from participants through the following questionnaires online: Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale – Italian Version, The Coping Self-Efficacy Scale – Short Form, an original questionnaire on stressors, and the Emergency Stress Questionnaire (to assess organizational–relational, physical, decisional inefficacy, emotional, cognitive, and COVID-19 stress). We performed a t-test, correlational analysis, and hierarchical regression. The analyses reveal that compared with the emergency worker group, the health worker group has greater levels of emergency stress and arousal and is more willing to use problem-focused coping. Healthcare workers involved in the treatment of COVID-19 are exposed to a large degree of stress and could experience secondary trauma; hence, it is essential to plan prevention strategies for future pandemic situations. Moreover, individual efficacy in stopping negative emotions and thoughts could be a protective strategy against stress and secondary trauma.
Highlights
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19), or the acute respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began spreading in China at the end of 2019 and, to date, represents an international health emergency without precedents in terms of its health, economic, and organizational effects on people’s lives (World Health Organization, 2020)
The main objective of this study is to identify the coping strategies activated by healthcare and emergency workers to deal with stress factors related to the COVID-19 emergency that may be associated with the risk of developing vicarious or secondary trauma
In this study, we are interested in detecting the similarities and differences in the approaches they adopted to manage their stress during the acute phase of the current pandemic According to Walton et al (2020), the main acute stress reactions of emergency workers to emergency medical situations are emotional, cognitive, physical, and social reactions
Summary
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19), or the acute respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began spreading in China at the end of 2019 and, to date, represents an international health emergency without precedents in terms of its health, economic, and organizational effects on people’s lives (World Health Organization, 2020). It was clear that the medical staff would experience serious psychological repercussions because of the working conditions as well as the difficulty of having scientific points of reference on care and intervention procedures To this must be added the increase in workload, the extension of working hours and, for health workers, the frequent exposure to the suffering and death of their patients. The aim of this study, which was the aim of a previous study (Vagni et al, 2020), is to focus on the similarities and the differences in the stress management of two professional groups—healthcare and emergency workers— during the acute phase of the pandemic Both groups have had to deal with COVID patients as frontline responders and have been exposed to the related risks of infection and psychological consequences, which, to date, have not been examined in detail through a comparative analysis
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