Psychological resilience and secondary traumatic stress in health personnel during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: In the current COVID-19 pandemic, health professionals are particularly prone to developing psychiatric disorders.
Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the psychological resilience and secondary traumatic stress in health personnel during COVID-19 pandemic.
Material and Method: The sample of this research is 150 health professionals. The questionnaire was used as a data collection tool, and the following scales were used: Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale, Professional Quality of Life. Statistical data analysis was performed with the IBM SPSS program.
Results: Healthcare personnel have been found to have moderate psychological resilience (mean 49.2±10.7), but have a high degree of secondary traumatic stress (mean 58.8±11.2). Furthermore, it was found that the health staff has high professional exhaustion (mean 42.1±3.5) and little compassionate satisfaction (mean 21.9±5.4). Demographic characteristics such as gender, age and educational status were also found to be associated with psychological resilience and secondary traumatic stress in health care personnel at a significance level p<0,001. Furthermore, this research found that psychological resilience and secondary traumatic stress are negatively correlated to each other (r=-0.952, p<0.001).
Conclusions: Given these results, it is proposed to develop appropriate strategies to reduce secondary traumatic stress in healthcare staff, as well as to increase psychological resilience.