The COVID-19 Pandemic from the Health Workers’ Perspective: Between Health Emergency and Personal Crisis

Abstract

Different scholars have emphasised the psychological distress experienced by health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, there are almost no qualitative studies and we know very little about the everyday experience of this group. The present study’s goal was to explore how health workers interpreted the meaning of the pandemic crisis in their life. An online survey was available during the Italian lockdown. Respondents were asked to write a passage about the meaning of living in the time of COVID-19. A total number of 130 questionnaires (M = 42.35; DS = 10.52; women: 56.2%) were collected. The Automated Method for Content Analysis (ACASM) procedure was applied to the collected texts to detect the factorial dimensions underpinning (dis)similarities in the respondents’ narratives. Such factors were interpreted as the markers of latent dimensions of meanings (DS). The two main DS that emerged were characterised by the pertinentisation of two extremely basic issues: what the pandemic represents (health emergency versus personal crisis) and its impact (powerlessness versus discovery of new meanings). On the whole, health workers’ narratives help to highlight the risk of normalising the feelings of fear and impotence experienced when facing the health emergency and the need to recognise that such feelings are strictly intertwined with the limited resources received to “face the battle”; the need to recognize the human vulnerability of the women and men “inside the lab coat” and the human effort to maintain or reconstruct a sense of self and purpose in the face of troubled circumstances.

Critical Issues of Working during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Italian Healthcare Workers’ Experience

“…Most frontliners (45.74%) reported that they were distressed by the heavy workload [ 17 , 26 ], whilst most non-frontliners (28.68%) did not perceive an increase in the level of distress since the beginning of the pandemic. However, they both reported negative emotions such as helplessness, restlessness, sadness, frustration and fear [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 14 , 18 , 19 , 29 ].…”

“…Both the general population and medical staff developed a general sense of uncertainty and fear for the future [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. In Italy, like elsewhere, the pandemic caused loneliness and fear of death, while also causing economic and social disruption [ 7 , 8 ].…”

“…The general unpreparedness of the healthcare services was an important source of distress for HCWs [ 14 ]. In addition, they felt lonely [ 6 , 7 , 15 , 16 ], and had concerns about the danger of being infected and infecting others [ 4 , 10 , 12 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. Burnout was frequently reported [ 19 , 21 , 22 ].…”

“…Psychophysical discomfort (e.g., fatigue [ 7 , 29 ]) and various kinds of negative emotions (such as restlessness, helplessness, sadness, frustration, etc.) have been often identified in those HCWs who faced the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide [ 5 , 7 , 14 , 18 , 29 ], even in Italy [ 6 , 7 , 19 ].…”

Burnout and Psychological Vulnerability in First Responders: Monitoring Depersonalization and Phobic Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…To this end, health facilities must provide measures capable of analyzing and regulating these conditions. It would be useful to introduce educational programs to improve and strengthen ways to proactively counter and regulate stress, resulting from workload and interpersonal relationships, during the pandemic (but it suffers for the lack of data proceeding the COVID-19 pandemic) [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ].…”