Clin Psychol Psychother. 2021 Jul 13. doi: 10.1002/cpp.2644. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: COVID-19 pandemic has been a stressful condition. We explored life changes and health-related consequences of COVID-19 outbreak in Italian health care workers in comparison to the general population.
METHODS: A total of 593 subjects participated to the online CoRonavIruS Health Impact Survey. Life events and changes, physical health, and worries were evaluated referring to 2-week prior the survey. Mood states and daily behavior were retrospectively evaluated referring to 3-month before COVID-19 (T1) and 2-week prior the survey (T2). Student t-test, Mann-Whitney test, and multivariate logistic regression analyses were run.
RESULTS: Five hundred and twenty-one subjects were analyzed (healthcare workers: n= 163, 31.84%; general population: n = 349, 68.16%). Healthcare workers were more likely to report fatigue and have spent more time outside home during the 2-week prior the survey than the general population (x2 (df)=266.03(17), p<0.001, R2=0.57). From T1 to T2, healthcare workers had a significant increase in negative mood, worry, restlessness, loneliness, and a decrease in happiness, while subjects from the general population had a statistically significant increase in negative mood, worry, attention, concentration difficulties, and a decrease in happiness, pleasure related to daily activities, time spent outdoors, alcohol use.
CONCLUSION: In the framework of a growing literature on health care workers’ status during the COVID-19 pandemic, the present study allowed to identify fatigue and loneliness as psychosomatic modifiable variables in need of being monitored and, possibly managed, to ameliorate the health status of health care workers.
PMID:34255890 | DOI:10.1002/cpp.2644
