Mental health and life satisfaction among Canadian paramedics during the COVID-19 pandemic: an update

ABSTRACT

IntroductionPrevious results suggest that COVID-19 adversely impacted a number of health and coping measures among Canadian paramedics, particularly females. Estimated prevalence for meeting screening criteria for mental health disorders and suicidal thoughts were higher than previously reported.ObjectivesTo provide an update on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the wellbeing of Canadian paramedics with the inclusion of an additional year of participant data.MethodsSelf-reported questionnaire data was collected from paramedics across five Canadian provinces as part of the COVID-19 Occupational Risks, Seroprevalence and Immunity among Paramedics (CORSIP) project. Validated psychological assessment tools were used to screen for major depressive disorder (MDD, PHQ-9 questionnaire) and probable post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD, PC-PTSD-5 questionnaire). Satisfaction with life (SWL) scores were adapted from validated Canadian Census questions and confirmed by reliability analysis. All measures were compared before versus during the pandemic using Wilcoxon signed-ranked, Cliff's d, and differences in proportions tests where appropriate.ResultsQuestionnaires from an additional 1662 recruited paramedics were included, now totaling 3568 participants. Prevalence meeting screening criteria remained similar for MDD (31.6%) and PTSD (41.4%), with PTSD risk continuing to not be impacted by COVID-19. Paramedics continued to report higher median SWL scores (20 vs. 17, p<.001) prior to the pandemic, with a large effect size (d=0.58) that suggests a greater probability of reporting higher SWL prior to COVID-19. Suicidal ideation (i.e., ‘thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself in some way') was reported by 9.0% of paramedics, which was consistent with original findings.ConclusionOriginal findings appear stable with the addition of another year of participant data. Future analyses will be employed to investigate whether health and satisfaction measures differed between the original cohort and added participants by adjusting for questionnaire responses with respect to the pandemic timeline.