Psychological distress, coping behaviors, and preferences for support among New York healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

By Ari Shechter, F. Diaz, Nathalie Moise, D. Anstey, S. Ye, S. Agarwal, Jeffrey L. Birk, D. Brodie, D. Cannone, B. Chang and 25 more. General Hospital Psychiatry, 2020

915 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Objective The mental health toll of COVID-19 on healthcare workers (HCW) is not yet fully described. We characterized distress, coping, and preferences for support among NYC HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods This was a cross-sectional web survey of physicians, advanced practice providers, residents/fellows, and nurses, conducted during a peak of inpatient admissions for COVID-19 in NYC (April 9th–April 24th 2020) at a large medical center in NYC (n = 657). Results Positive screens for psychological symptoms were common; 57% for acute stress, 48% for depressive, and 33% for anxiety symptoms. For each, a higher percent of nurses/advanced practice providers screened positive vs. attending physicians, though housestaff's rates for acute stress and depression did not differ from either. Sixty-one percent of participants reported increased sense of meaning/purpose since the COVID-19 outbreak. Physical activity/exercise was the most common coping behavior (59%), and access to an individual therapist with online self-guided counseling (33%) garnered the most interest. Conclusions NYC HCWs, especially nurses and advanced practice providers, are experiencing COVID-19-related psychological distress. Participants reported using empirically-supported coping behaviors, and endorsed indicators of resilience, but they also reported interest in additional wellness resources. Programs developed to mitigate stress among HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic should integrate HCW preferences.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, General Health Professions

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/98b4c2e3106da11d8e99c0748689e3c21a5101bd

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In Clinical Psychology

In General Health Professions

Citations in the corpus

Positive psychology in a pandemic: buffering, bolstering, and building mental health (2021, background): “This is typified by a COVID-19 study showing that despite spikes in acute stress, depression, and anxiety among front-line healthcare workers, an astonishing 61% of them said they had found increased meaning and purpose in life (Shechter et al., 2020).”