Abstract
Considering the high impact strain that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has put on medical personnel worldwide, identifying means to alleviate stress on healthcare professionals and to boost their subjective and psychological wellbeing is more relevant than ever. This study investigates the extent to which the relationships between the status of working in healthcare and the subjective and psychological wellbeing are serially mediated by work recovery experiences and the need for recovery. Data were collected from 217 Romanian employees (44 health professionals and 173 employees from other domains) using a cross-sectional design with self-report instruments, during the first stage of the nationwide lockdown. The results of the serial mediation analyses revealed that working in the medical field is indirectly related to subjective and psychological wellbeing through the following: (i) mastery experiences and (ii) mastery experiences as an antecedent of the need for recovery. As such, our findings indicate that (i) working in the medical field is, in fact, linked to healthcare professionals’ subjective and psychological wellbeing, and they provide some input on (ii) how recovery experiences and the need for recovery intervene in these relationships. Based on these findings, theoretical, methodological, and practical implications were suggested, and future research directions were proposed to maximize healthcare professionals’ wellbeing.
Highlights
Literature shows that, in normal circumstances, healthcare professionals report longer working hours, less time spent in leisure activities, and shorter amounts of sleep, as compared to an average adult in other working environments (Cranley et al, 2016)
In line with the trend in recent literature to call for a systemic approach to the research of wellbeing and burnout (Montgomery et al, 2019), we argue that future work should look into multiple dimensions of wellbeing (Keyes, 2002) and the ways in which they are affected by both needs for recovery and recovery experiences
Considering the new strains that COVID-19 has imposed on the physical, emotional, and cognitive resources of healthcare professionals, we propose that the opportunities afforded to them to take part in work recovery experiences are limited, and the resource replenishment process after work is impaired, resulting in an increased need for recovery and impaired emotional and psychological wellbeing
Summary
Literature shows that, in normal circumstances, healthcare professionals report longer working hours, less time spent in leisure activities, and shorter amounts of sleep, as compared to an average adult in other working environments (Cranley et al, 2016). Fatigue, burnout, and mental health problems among medical personnel have been shown to increase during the pandemic (Sagherian et al, 2020; Sasangohar et al, 2020), especially severe in its initial stages (Lai et al, 2020; Xu et al, 2020). This was true both for frontline medical staff (those working directly with patients with COVID-19) and for those working on their regular wards for uninfected patients (Wu et al, 2020). There was less time for basic rest, i.e., let alone for the opportunity to engage in other activities they used to find comfort in, before the pandemic
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