Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychosocial work factors and emotional exhaustion among workers in the healthcare sector: a longitudinal study among 1915 Dutch workers

ObjectivesThis study aims to investigate across subgroups of healthcare workers (1) the changes in psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion during the pandemic compared with the situation before, and (2) the impact of different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of hospital pressure on psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion. MethodsFive questionnaire measurements during 2 years from 1915 healthcare workers in the longitudinal study 'the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey-COVID-19' were used. At each measurement, three subgroups were defined: working with patients with COVID-19, working with other patients and not working with patients. For each measurement, hospital pressure was determined by number of hospitalisations per day. Linear mixed models were fitted to analyse differences across subgroups of healthcare workers. ResultsDuring COVID-19, psychosocial working conditions deteriorated among healthcare workers working with patients, in particular with patients with COVID-19, compared with healthcare workers not working with patients after correcting for the situation before COVID-19. No changes were observed for emotional exhaustion in any of the subgroups. An increasing hospital pressure improved job autonomy and reduced emotional demands among healthcare workers in COVID-19 wards, but had no influence on other psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion. ConclusionPsychosocial working conditions deteriorated for healthcare workers working with (COVID-19) patients during the pandemic, while emotional exhaustion did not change among all groups of healthcare workers.

Automated summary

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the working conditions and emotional exhaustion of healthcare workers. The results show that healthcare workers working with COVID-19 patients experienced worsened psychosocial working conditions, while emotional exhaustion remained unchanged across all groups of healthcare workers.