JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

India faced maximum number of mortalities and morbidities during the second wave of COVID-19. The healthcare workers worked under high pressure and stressful environments. The COVID-19 negative impact on healthcare systems and HCWs has made it mandatory to assess the mental health of the HCWs working on the frontline during emergency and its potential consequence on their well-being. This pandemic is likely to continue to exist and affect frontline workers. Therefore, it is important to ensure complete well-being of the HCWs by focusing on all aspects of health.

Objective:

This study aimed to assess the common issues, challenges and coping strategies of HCWs and assess the statistical association between demographic characteristics and coping strategies.

Methods:

A cross-section study was conducted with 759 healthcare workers involving simple random sampling in Rajasthan, India, was completed between August 2022 and October 2022. The participants responded to a self-administered questionnaire which included brief COPE inventory. The statistical association of the commonly adopted coping strategies with various demographic characteristics of the participants was tested using the chi-square test and Fisher exact test.

Results:

270 (36%) doctors, 325 (43%) nurses, 146 (20%) paramedical staff, and 18 (3%) administration staff participated in this study. 669 (88%) agreed that they faced issues during COVID-19 such as little interest in doing work, not being able to work, burnout and anxious. 721 (95%) participants felt challenges at personal level such as emotionally tired, stressed when exposed to new COVID-19 infected patients and incompetent at work. 716 (94%) participants faced challenges at organizational level such as shortage of personal protective equipment, forced to do overtime and had to wear protective equipment every day. 557 (74%) participants faced challenges at societal level such as fear from society due to alienation, poor support from society and low social acceptance. Of all the three major coping strategies, problem focused coping strategy was most frequently adopted by the participants. Gender, marital status, education, hours of work every day and residential area were statistically associated with problem-focused coping (P = .001, .05, .001, .01 and .02 respectively).

Conclusions:

This study found various issues, challenges and coping strategies adopted by Indian healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings support existing literature on the effects of crisis on the well-being of healthcare workers. Further research on mediation analysis using structural equation modelling techniques may aid in identifying the mediating factors that affect the coping strategies adopted by the HCWs.