Clinicians’ Social Support, Job Stress, and Intent to Leave Healthcare during COVID-19

Abstract

The onset of COVID-19 has escalated healthcare workers’ psychological distress. Multiple factors, including prolonged exposure to COVID-19 patients, irregular working hours, and workload, have substantially contributed to stress and burnout among healthcare workers. To explore the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers, our study compares the job stress, social support, and intention to leave the job among healthcare workers working in a pandemic (HP) and a non-pandemic hospital (HNP) in Turkey during the pandemic. The cross-sectional, paper-based survey involved 403 healthcare workers including physicians, registered nurses, health technicians, and auxiliary staff across two hospitals from 1 September 2020 to 31 November 2020. The findings indicate a significant impact of ‘Job stress’ on ‘Intent to leave’ job among participants in the HP. We noted that ‘intent to leave’ and ‘job stress’ were significantly higher among the HP healthcare workers than those working in the HNP, respectively. However, workers’ ‘social support’ was significantly lower in the HP. Healthcare workers, during COVID-19, face several hurdles such as job stress, reduced social support, and excessive workload, all of which are potential factors influencing a care provider’s intent to leave the job.

Healthcare providers' intention to leave their jobs during COVID‐19 pandemic: A cross‐sectional study

“… 38 On the other hand, some studies found no relationship between the intent HCPs to leave the job and their socio‐demographic variables. 39 , 40 …”

Coronasomnia in Employees without a Direct Contact with COVID-19 Infected Patients in Their Workplace

“…This was expected, as working with COVID-19 patients was a direct influencer of insomnia in the previous full-sample analysis and is concordant with other research studies. For example, the same distinction was found in healthcare workers from COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 hospitals [46]. Personal resilience is a well-characterized protector factor for insomnia and distress [47] and some organizations that have provided training to increasing resilience had positive effects on their employees.…”

Development and Validation of a Short Measure of Emotional, Physical, and Behavioral Markers of Eustress and Distress (MEDS)

“…The COVID-19 pandemic offers a particularly relevant context in which antecedents of eustress and distress can be reliably explored, also in cross-cultural studies, especially due to the global nature of the pandemic. A specific area of application of the short measure of eustress and distress is to better understand humans’ adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic [ 21 , 22 , 40 ]. On the one hand, it is clear that the constant focus of the media and public discourse on the threats associated with the pandemic generate ruminative tendencies that predict self-handicapping tendencies and exhaustion [ 43 ], ultimately reducing wellbeing [ 40 , 44 , 45 ].…”

“…In a recent paper, Merino et al [ 18 ] used positive and negative affect experienced in relation to COVID-19 quarantine as indicators of eustress and distress, respectively. The COVID-19 pandemic is indeed a global stressor [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ] that can trigger either eustress or distress in the population [ 20 , 23 ]. We have put forward a more comprehensive multidimensional approach of measuring eustress and distress in academic and organizational settings by taking into consideration emotional, physical, and behavioral indicators that discriminate between the two complex psychological states.…”