as loneliness, hope and self-compassion have changed during this period remains to be evaluated in this population. Loneliness is detrimental to mental health (Kotera, Chircop, et al., 2021;Surkalim et al., 2022), whereas hope aids in coping with COVID-19-related stress (Zhang et al., 2021). Self-compassion has also been found to help individuals cope with mental distress (Kotera et al., 2019;Kotera, Taylor, et al., 2021). Establishing how loneliness, hope and selfcompassion change over time in relation to mental health will provide insights into potential risk and protective factors, aiding in the identification of effective interventions to improve the mental health of HCWs (Choi et al., 2020).
MethodsOnline surveys were distributed to two Facebook groups attended by HCWs and the general population at baseline (June 2020). One group was for HCWs in Japan, sharing the latest news. The other group was an information source group that discussed the latest news. Those groups were chosen as they were (a) active, highlighting the latest news Yasuhiro Kotera