ABSTRACT
The outbreak of Covid-19 has exacerbated the mental health of Healthcare Workers (HCWs), caused by an increase in their stress levels owing to an exponential rise in their workloads. Previous works have revealed visible changes in Heart Rate Variability (HRV), in response to increased/decreased stress levels. This study focused on analyzing HRV as a parameter to observe the impact of higher stress levels, on clinicians, due to the pandemic. Their responses to a Perceived Stress Score (PSS) questionnaire were used as a reference to determine their escalated stress levels. The responses showed that 40% of clinicians revealed increased levels of high chronic stress while the remaining were affected by moderate chronic stress. We computed HRV for each clinician from HR data obtained using a chest-based wearable device during sleep and ward sessions. Through detailed analysis of HRV, we observed clinicians with high chronic stress showed lower HRV when compared to clinicians with moderate chronic stress during both sleep and ward sessions. Later we did a close investigation of their HRV on Day 1 and Day 2 in Covid-IP (Inpatient) and compared the HRV features. Finally, we compared the HRV features of clinicians between Covid-IP Covid-OP (Outpatient) ward sessions. The above study validated that HRV is a reliable parameter for an objective assessment of stress levels. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected individuals of all categories, irrespective of their geographical locations, professions, gender, or race. As a result of full or partial lock-down and stay-at-home orders, the well-being and productivity of individuals were severely affected. Since basic science research requires laboratory experiments, the work-from-home strategy hurt their productivity. In addition, the combination of decreased productivity and staying at home is likely to compromise their well-being by causing stress and anxiety. In this case study, a strategy was developed to engage researchers through listening and learning, motivation, and empowerment, using regular virtual sessions. Through these virtual sessions, research work was prioritized and coordinated, from idea conception to writing research papers and grant proposals. Perceived stress scores (PSS) and COVID-19-related stress (COVID-SS) scores were measured to evaluate general and COVID-19-induced stress, respectively, every month from March to July 2020 during the COVID-19 era. The result showed a significant improvement in both the PSS and the COVID-SS scores of the intervention group compared to the control group. In addition, while there was no/minimal change in PSS and COVID-SS scores from March to subsequent months until July for the control group, the intervention groups showed significant and consistent improvement in both scores in the intervention group. Overall, the intervention strategy showed improved well-being for basic science researchers, which was also consistent with their improved productivity during the COVID-19 era.