Post-traumatic stress symptoms and professional quality of life among healthcare professionals working in COVID departments

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The COVID pandemic had a heavy impact on the mental health of people in general and healthcare professionals in particular. Objective(s) Our study aimed to examine the the prevalence of posttraumatic stress symptoms among healthcare professionals working in COVID departments, and assess their professional quality of life. Method(s) Our sample consisted of 23 healthcare professionals who are working in the COVID departments of the Hospitals of Sfax. We collected their sociodemographic data, their medical history and COVID-related details. Their mental health was assessed by the Impact of Event scale (IES-R) and the professional quality of life scale (ProQOL-5) Results: The sex ratio in our study was 176, with a mean age of 31.79 years. They carried out 5.43 nightshifts per month, 57 hours of work per week including 27.38 hours of direct contact with COVID positive patients. A rate of 21.74% of the patients had a high IES-R score, indicating severe post traumatic stress symptoms. As for the subscales of the professional quality of life score, 21.73% of the participants had a low compassion satisfaction score, 65.21% of the participants had a moderate one and 13% had a high one. A rate of 91.3%of the participants had amoderate burnout score, the mean was 29.39. The secondary traumatization score was low in 26% of the cases, moderate in 60.86%, high in 13% and the mean was 27.91. Conclusion(s) COVID healthcare professionals are at a relatively high risk of developing burnout and post-traumatic stress symptoms.