Personal professional and job factors related to the burn out of midwives in Crete, during the pandemic COVID-19.

Introduction: Health Professionals are constantly faced with stressful conditions that can cause emotional Burn Out as they deal with complex procedures related to treatments and care. Particularly during Covid 19 pandemic, excessive workload, discrimination, high infection risk and limited social support have resulted in quicker and more intense exhaustion.

Aim: the investigation of the of the Burn Out Syndrome prevalence among midwives in the island of Crete during Covid 19 Pandemic as well as the identification of the specific factors (personal, professional, work related ) that are critical for the emergence of this phenomenon.

Method: A cross Sectional Study has been conducted with a sample of 104 midwives working in all Health Care levels in Public as well as private Units in the island of Crete. For the Data collection the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory was used as well as the FCV-19S Fear of Covid 19 scale in order to identify the Syndrom’s related specific factors of professional Burn Out and to correlate Fear of Covid 19 to the extent of the Burn Out phenomenon. Data Analysis SPSS (IBMCorp. Released 2019, IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, v.26.0, Armonk, NY: IBM Corp) has been used for the Data Analysis.

Results: Results revealed moderate to low Burn Out levels among Midwives working in Crete as the average levels of Personal and Occupational Burn Out were 53.3 and 44.7 respectively, significantly lower compared to Client-related Burn Out 34.2 (p<0,001) Covid-19 Fear Scale (FCV-19S) implementation, revealed moderate levels (17.1) while prevalence of high Fear levels due to Covid-19 has been revealed approximately for the half of the Sample (51.9%). Moderate or severe Personal exhaustion seems to be significantly influenced by employment in the private sector (OR = 3.10, p = 0.039), the advanced years they work or worked night shifts (OR = 1.08, p = 0.047) or high Fear due to COVID-19 (OR = 2.74, p = 0.038). In moderate or severe Work exhaustion, employment in the private sector (OR = 3.57, p = 0.017) or the advanced years they work or worked night shifts (OR= 1.10,) also seems to have a significant effect (OR=1.10, p=0.047). Finally, the moderate Fear due to COVID-19 (OR =2.90, p = 0.037) seems to have a significant effect on the moderate or severe Exhaustion of the Customer.

Conclusions: Extreme conditions faced during Covid 19 by Health Care Professionals may increase Burn Out risk with adverse effects not only on Personal wellbeing but also on provided care and Health Care Systems consequently.