COVID-19 pandemic: Emotional burnout in nurses (3 years later)

Introduction. During the COVID-19 pandemic, crises occurred in various spheres of life – health, politics, economics, education, etc. Medical staff turned out to be a more vulnerable category in terms of the risk of developing emotional burnout. The various problems that the doctors had to face contributed to a huge increase in workload, as well as increased susceptibility to burnout and stress.

The aim of the study is to investigate the emotional burnout of COVID nurses in hospitals, polyclinics and hospitals 3 years after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Material and methods. To achieve the purpose of the study, a survey and analysis were conducted among nurses who worked in the “red zone” of COVID hospitals (n=73); polyclinic nurses (n=78) and nurses of multidisciplinary hospitals (n=77), as well as the control group (n=79). To study the burnout syndrome, the Maslach Burnout questionnaire was used and a questionnaire was conducted, which allowed us to assess the attitude of nursing staff to the situation 3 years after the COVID-19 pandemic. The processing of the obtained data was carried out using the statistical package “Statistica”.

Results. It was revealed that nurses who worked in the “red zone” in COVID hospitals, their colleagues from polyclinics and multidisciplinary hospitals, according to the results of the study, have increased indicators of emotional burnout. COVID hospital nurses have significantly higher characteristics of “occupational exhaustion” and “depersonalization” compared to hospital nurses (p≤0.001) and outpatient nurses (p≤0.001). It should be noted that the nurses of COVID hospitals have a significantly lower indicator of “reduction of personal achievements” compared to the nurses of multidisciplinary hospitals and outpatient clinics. Risk factors that affect the psychological health and emotional burnout of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic have been identified: changes in the organization of work, the risk of infection and social isolation.

Conclusions. The study revealed that all three groups have increased characteristics of professional burnout. Thus, COVID hospital nurses have significantly higher rates of “professional exhaustion”, “depersonalization” and low values of the indicator “reduction of personal achievements”, compared with colleagues in multidisciplinary hospitals and outpatient clinics, even after 3 years. The treatment of patients with COVID-19 exposes physicians to specific risk factors associated with the care of infected patients, with significant changes in the organization of work, as well as safety-related aspects that contribute to increased stress and emotional burnout.