Post-traumatic growth and influencing factors among frontline nurses fighting against COVID-19

Abstract

ObjectiveTo explore the level and influencing factors of frontline nurses’ post-traumatic growth (PTG) during COVID-19 epidemic.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted in February 2020 in three hospitals in China. The Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) was used to investigate the PTG of frontline nurses. Data on related factors, including demographic characteristics and subjective variables, were collected. The Event-Related Rumination Inventory was used to assess rumination. Pearson’s or Spearman’s correlation was calculated for bivariate analysis. Independent sample t-tests or one-way analysis of variance and multiple linear regression analysis were used to examine the related factors.ResultsA total of 179 frontline nurses were recruited, and 167 were included in the analyses. The mean PTG score was 70.53±17.26. The bivariate analyses showed that deliberate rumination was modestly positively correlated with PTG (r=0.557, p<0.01), while intrusive rumination had a modest negative correlation with PTG (r=−0.413, p<0.01). Multiple linear regression demonstrated that working years, self-confidence in frontline work, awareness of risk, psychological intervention or training during the epidemic and deliberate rumination were the main influencing factors of PTG among frontline nurses and accounted for 42.5% of the variance (F=31.626, p<0.001).ConclusionsThe PTG of frontline nurses was at a medium to high level and was influenced by working years, self-confidence in frontline work, awareness of risk, psychological intervention or training and deliberate rumination. It is necessary to strengthen psychological guidance and training for frontline nurses and promote their deliberate rumination on epidemic events to improve their PTG.

Investigating the Psychological Impact of COVID-19 among Healthcare Workers: A Meta-Analysis

“…We investigated the prevalence of anxiety and depression by risk groups and found higher levels of anxiety and depression (as expected) among frontline responders as compared to the second-line workers. All of these results may be partly confounded by the fact that majority of the frontline workers' group constitutes nurses, who are responsible for providing direct care to the COVID-19 patients and for collecting sputum specimen for virus detection, and tend to be female [3,27,28,[94][95][96][97]. This repeats a finding from the SARS outbreak that nurses reported higher anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and moral injuries (related to death and ethical dilemmas) [3,5,7,14,27,28,[92][93][94][95].…”

“…The higher prevalence of the psychosocial impact of COVID-19 on health care workers found in this study draws more careful attention to educational and policy interventions for this subgroup. Educational and behavioral interventions emphasizing hardiness, social support, positive thinking, a sense of coherence, and others have been advocated in the literature [96][97][98]. The role of self-care is also highlighted by some researchers [98][99][100].…”

“…The role of self-care is also highlighted by some researchers [98][99][100]. Positive traumatic growth (a positive approach to the management of complex traumas) among health care workers has gained special attention, and interventions to build this have been suggested [96,99,100]. Some strategies, such as mindfulness interventions, can be instituted quickly to promote healthcare workers' mental health [97][98][99].…”

Harnessing distress to boost growth in frontline healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic: the protective role of resilience, emotion regulation and social support

“…The current narrative on psychological wellbeing of frontline healthcare workers (HCWs) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been highly polarized by a predominant focus on distress: most studies have painted a picture of a fragile group with mental health needs that need prioritizing (Dutheil, Mondillon, & Navel, 2020 ; García-Fernández et al, 2020 ; Holmes et al, 2020 ; Romero et al, 2020 ), while a few others depict HCWs as resilient and endowed with super-hero abilities (Cui et al, 2021 ; Stokes-Parish, Elliott, Rolls, & Massey, 2020 ).…”

Post-traumatic Growth Level and Its Influencing Factors Among Frontline Nurses During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kristine Olson and Martin Huecker emphasized the great significance to study PTG and its facilitators among HCWs ( 11 , 12 ). A study conducted in February 2020 showed that 167 frontline nurses in Henan and Hubei, China, had demonstrated a moderate and above level of PTG during the early stages of the pandemic, meanwhile, the PTG level was associated with working years, self-confidence in frontline work, awareness of risk, psychological intervention, or training and deliberate rumination ( 13 ). Another large-scale survey conducted in April 2020 discussed relationship among burnout and PTG, influencing factors of PTG were not explored ( 14 ).…”