COVID-19 healthcare workers report experiencing anxiety symptoms in a recent study, 18% of which report moderate to severe symptoms. Researcher Tamar Rodney, PMHNP-BC, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, shared the results of her research study on how COVID-19 has impacted healthcare workers in a session at the recent Psych Congress Elevate virtual meeting.

“The specific purpose of this research was to capture this concept of ‘uncertainty’ during COVID-19, and to examine what the potential impact of uncertainty was on healthcare workers. And, more importantly, the perceived risk that they saw,” Rodney told virtual attendees.

Using a 21-question, Beck Anxiety Inventory scale, Rodney surveyed professionals working in the healthcare industry, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other roles. She found that nurses made up most of her respondents at 71.2%, which was “unsurprising.”

Of respondents, Rodney told virtual attendees that 19.4% were in their role for more than 25 years. She states that although the healthcare industry is a high-stress environment, “many individuals will make this their life’s work, so experiencing anxiety is not necessarily a deterrent to the profession, but how you cope with it while in that role is important.”

The survey results were categorized into 3 anxiety levels: mild, moderate, and severe. Most respondents (81.8%) indicated having mild anxiety symptoms; however, on a cumulative level, 18.2% categorized their symptoms as moderate-to-severe. Rodney stresses these data because “while the number might look very low … [this] actually indicates that this is where an individual might be seeking treatment for their anxiety symptoms because of the impact on their day-to-day life.”

Waiting to Emerge From the Pandemic: What Awaits Us?

Outside of the quantitative, Rodney captured qualitative data to open the scope of the study. In examining the responses, “not surprisingly individuals were concerned about contracting the virus themselves, getting sick, and how getting sick would affect their workload.” Rodney continues by addressing responses regarding how anxiety was affecting the individuals, and fear was a major topic. Fear of how bad the pandemic would be, how their jobs would be impacted, and taking the virus home to their families.  

Rodney found that respondents were seeking assistance more from outside resources, such as family and faith, as coping mechanisms. She “found this finding to be rather interesting because in an area where we have healthcare workers with other healthcare workers going through the same pandemic and same fear, support seemed to come from outside.” She believes that this is an area to focus on for improvement from an industry standpoint.

While much of the research on COVID-19 has been more short-term regarding the impact of the pandemic, Rodney concludes her session by proposing “a longitudinal study to look at the long-term effects of COVID-19 on individuals, not just on their person, but also what it does for their role … and will there be any negative outcomes on the healthcare worker role having gone through a pandemic.” 

—Heather Flint

Reference

Rodney T. Impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers. Presented at: Psych Congress Elevate; June 11–13, 2021; Virtual.