Wellbeing and Stress Coping among Healthcare and Pharmacy Workers: Experiences during the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Lithuania.

(1) Background. During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals faced psychological and social challenges in addition to a sharp increase in workload. The aim of this work was to reveal how healthcare and pharmacy workers assessed their wellbeing and the methods of coping they employed to overcome stress during quarantine. (2) Methods. The mixed-method study was conducted between August and October 2020, integrating quantitative (n = 967) and qualitative (n = 27) strategies. Doctors, nurses, healthcare administrative staff, pharmacy specialists, and other employees of the healthcare system were interviewed retrospectively about their experiences during and following lockdown (March-June 2020). (3) Results. Overall, 38.7% of the respondents reported a decrease in psychological wellbeing, while 23.4% of the respondents reported a decrease in physical wellbeing during quarantine. The healthcare professionals' narratives identified a shift from nonspecific fears at the beginning of the pandemic to the more concrete fear of contracting COVID-19, of infecting others, and about their loved ones, as well as undifferentiated fear. Multivariate analysis revealed that a subjective decrease in wellbeing was typical in professionals who had had direct contact with patients infected with COVID-19, as well as those with stronger fears, and those who were more likely to employ compulsive distancing and substance use as ways to cope with stress. (3) Conclusions. The results suggest that lockdown had a negative impact on healthcare workers' wellbeing during the first pandemic wave in 2020.

How Does the Assessment of Work Organization during the COVID-19 Pandemic Relate to Changes in the Well-Being of Health System Workers?

In the case of various emergencies, especially pandemics, healthcare workers are faced with disproportionate pressures. Organizational support plays a significant role in protecting the psychological and physical health of healthcare workers. This interdisciplinary research aims to determine how changes in the physical and psychological well-being of healthcare and pharmacy workers during the first wave of the COVID-19 lockdown are related to work organization factors that support safety and stability. A quantitative research strategy was applied in the research. Data from an electronic survey assessed the changes in the physical and psychological well-being of healthcare and pharmacy workers during the lockdown period and the organizational factors supporting safety and stability. The sample of the quantitative research consisted of 967 employees of healthcare institutions and pharmacies in Lithuania. This research broadens the concept of organizational factors and provides data on their interaction with the changes of employee well-being indicators in a pandemic situation. It was found that positive changes in the evaluation of physical as well as psychological well-being during the COVID-19 lockdown could be consistently predicted by all the analyzed safety and stability supporting organizational factors that were found to be associated with subjective physical well-being and psychological well-being even when adjusting for the effect of socio-demographic factors (gender, age, work field, and specialty). The identification and proper management of organizational factors was significant for the psychological and physical well-being of healthcare workers during the lockdown period. It was found that all estimates of safety and stability supporting organizational factors during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown were positively related and could act as protective factors to the subjective physical and psychological well-being of healthcare and pharmacy workers.