Objectives: To explore gender and occupational role impact on work-related Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, burnout and global functioning in a sample of emergency healthcare workers.
Design: A cross-sectional study.
Participants/setting: 126 healthcare workers of the Emergency Department, including Intensive Care Unit, Emergency Room and Emergency Medicine, of a major University Hospital in central Italy were recruited.
Main outcome measures: Participants were assessed by means of the: Trauma and Loss Spectrum-Self Report (TALS-SR) to explore Post-Traumatic Stress Spectrum Symptoms, Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) Scale to assess Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout and Compassion Fatigue and Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS) to measure global functioning.
Results: The present findings showed females were more prone to develop Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms, particularly re-experiencing (p = .010) and hyperarousal (p = .026) symptoms and medical doctors reporting higher Burnout (p < .001) and lower Compassion Satisfaction (p = .009) mean scores than nurses. Higher levels of functioning impairment emerged amongst medical doctors rather than nurses, in both social (p = .029) and private (p = .020) leisure activities. Linear correlations highlighted relationships between the TALS-SR, ProQOL and WSAS scores. Finally, medical doctor status was significantly associated with lower Compassion Satisfaction (p = .029) and higher Burnout (p = .015).
Conclusion: Our results highlight high post-traumatic stress symptoms and burnout levels in emergency healthcare workers with a relevant impact of female gender and occupational role, supporting the need for preventive strategies, also in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: Burnout; Critical care; Emergency health care workers; Global functioning; Nurses; Physicians; Post-traumatic stress symptoms.
Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.