Hardiness and Coping Strategies as Mediators of Stress and Secondary Trauma in Emergency Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The work environment of emergency workers is an important factor related to stress. Coping with the COVID-19 emergency is a factor that is highly related to stress, and severe stress is a risk factor for developing secondary trauma. Coping and resilience can help rescue workers to better respond in emergency situations and could protect them from secondary trauma. We aimed to explore the relationship of emergency stress, hardiness, coping strategies, and secondary trauma among emergency workers and the mediating roles of coping strategies and hardiness on the effect of stress in producing secondary trauma. The study involved 513 emergency workers from the Red Cross Committee in Veneto, one of the Italian regions most affected by the COVID-19. Participants completed questionnaires online to measure emergency stress (physical, emotional, cognitive, organizational‒relational, COVID-19, and inefficacy decisional), hardiness, coping strategies, and secondary trauma. Other variables analyzed were age, gender, weekly hours of service, and use of personal protective equipment (PPE). We performed t-tests, a correlational analysis, regressions, and a mediation analysis. Hardiness and coping strategies, in particular, which stop unpleasant emotions and thoughts and problem-focused, emerged as mediators in reducing the predicted effect of stress on secondary trauma. The mediating effects of hardiness and coping strategies were found to reduce the effect of stress on arousal by 15% and the effect on avoidance by 25%.

Together Against COVID-19 Concerns: The Role of the Dyadic Coping Process for Partners’ Psychological Well-Being During the Pandemic

“…It has been demonstrated, in fact, that appealing to fear as a measure of behavioral change can be effective during a global stressor, such as a pandemic, only when people possess (or are helped to acquire) a sense of efficacy to deal with the threat ( Witte and Allen, 2000 ). Research already highlighted that individual coping resources are key factors promoting adjustment to the COVID-19 emergency ( Vagni et al, 2020a , b ). Our study underlines that also promoting couples’ dyadic coping competences can be a way to enhance partners’ ability to deal with the stress and concerns related to the epidemic ( Prime et al, 2020 ) and adds to the literature showing that pro-relationship processes in response to negative events are important for couples (see Donato and Parise, 2015 ).…”

A Postcard From Italy: Challenges and Psychosocial Resources of Partners Living With and Without a Chronic Disease During COVID-19 Epidemic

“…In addition to physical and psychological health risks, isolation and loneliness, closure of businesses, organization of home-schooling, economic vulnerability, and job losses were some among the many stressors derived from this emergency (e.g., Crayne, 2020;Di Crosta et al, 2020;Pietrabissa and Simpson, 2020). In fact, pandemic causes psychological consequences on those individuals who are infected by the virus (e.g., Duan and Zhu, 2020), on health professionals (e.g., Barello et al, 2020;Giusti et al, 2020;Vagni et al, 2020a), but also on the non-infected community, because they impact several aspects of social life more generally. In fact, people's quality of life was profoundly touched by the sudden outbreak of this new virus and by this measure of lockdown (Casagrande et al, 2020;Favieri et al, 2020;Mazza et al, 2020;Zeppegno et al, 2020).…”

COVID-19 Pandemic and Mental Health of Nurses: Impact on International Health Security

“…Secondary (indirect) traumatic stress, defined as the stress of helping people who are in pain or who were traumatized and recovered, develops without direct sensory traces because of long-term exposure of the helping individual to the traumatic event and the continuous repetition of an event with unpleasant details [25,48]. The more traumatic the event and the greater the contact with the patient, the greater the risk of secondary traumatic stress formation [24].…”

“…When all these factors are considered, it is seen that high levels of psychological resilience are important for healthcare workers to effectively combat COVID-19 infection and maintain mental health. To increase nurses' psychological resilience, needs should be determined early, initiatives should be made to reduce or eliminate factors that have negative effects on mental health, and approaches to increase mental health protective factors should be determined [15,25,48,56,58]. Taking effective psychological support measures, and removing and balancing the fear, anxiety or sadness caused by the epidemic will help healthcare professionals to feel psychologically safe.…”

“…There is good evidence that social support has a stronger effect than material support and that it is often protective for mental health [48,51]. Social and peer support has been identified as an important protective factor against trauma effect and general mental well-being [8].…”