Highly stressful situations, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, induce constant changes in the mental state of people who experience them. In the present study, we analyzed the prevalence of some psychological symptoms and their determinants in four different categories of healthcare workers during the second year of the pandemic. A total of 265 physicians, 176 nurses, 184 other healthcare professionals, and 48 administrative employees, working in different Italian healthcare contexts, answered a questionnaire including variables about their mental status and experience with the pandemic. The mean scores for anxiety and depressive symptoms measured more than one year after the onset of the pandemic did not reach the pathological threshold. In contrast, post-traumatic and burnout symptoms tended toward the critical threshold, especially in physicians. The main determinant of psychological distress was perceived stress, followed by job satisfaction, the impact of COVID-19 on daily work, and a lack of recreational activities. These results increase the knowledge of which determinants of mental distress would be important to act on when particularly stressful conditions exist in the workplace that persist over time. If well-implemented, specific interventions focused on these determinants could lead to an improvement in employee well-being and in the quality of care provided.
Keywords: burnout; healthcare workers; impact of COVID-19; post-traumatic stress disorder; psychopathological symptoms.