Burnout and associative emotional status and coping style of healthcare workers in COVID-19 epidemic control: A cross-sectional study

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of burnout, clinical anxiety, depression, and insomnia and to estimate the associations of adverse emotional status, coping style, and level of self-efficacy with burnout of healthcare workers in the Shenzhen Longgang District Frontline District Headquarters of COVID-19 epidemic control, China.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 173 staff completed the anonymous questionnaires of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item Scale (GAD-7), Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), General Self-efficacy Scale, and Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire electronically (https://www.wjx.cn/) in June 2022. Hierarchical logistic regression was used to explore the associated factors of burnout in this study.Results: The prevalence of burnout in our participants (defined as high emotional exhaustion or high depersonalization) was 47.40%, and reduced personal accomplishment was 92.49%. The prevalence of clinically significant depression (the cutoff score of =15), anxiety (the cutoff score of =10), and insomnia (the cutoff score of =15) was 11.56, 19.08, and 19.08%, respectively. There was a degree of overlap between burnout and other measures of adverse mental status, most notably for anxiety (odds ratio, 27.049; 95% CI, 6.125-117.732; p < 0.001). Hierarchical logistic regression demonstrated that burnout was strongly associated with anxiety (OR = 23.889; 95% CI, 5.216-109.414; p < 0.001) and negative coping style (OR = 1.869; 95% CI, 1.278-2.921; p < 0.01) independently.Conclusion: Medical staff involved in COVID-19 epidemic control in the post-epidemic era were at high risk of burnout, and most of them were in low personal accomplishment. Reducing anxiety and improving coping style by medical management institutions from the system level may be effective in alleviating burnout in healthcare workers.

Automated summary

The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of burnout, clinical anxiety, depression, and insomnia among healthcare workers in the Shenzhen Longgang District Frontline District Headquarters of COVID-19 epidemic control, China, and to examine the associations of adverse emotional status, coping style, and level of self-efficacy with burnout. The results showed that the prevalence of burnout was 47.40%, and the prevalence of clinically significant depression, anxiety, and insomnia was 11.56%, 19.08%, and 19.08% respectively. There was a strong association between burnout and anxiety, as well as negative coping style. Therefore, reducing anxiety and improving coping style may be effective in alleviating burnout among healthcare workers, and this can be achieved through medical management institutions.