Portoghese Igor, Galletta Maura, Meloni Federico, Piras Ilenia, Finco Gabriele, D'Aloja Ernesto, Campagna Marcello
Department of Medical Sciences and Public Health, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.
PhD School in Biomedical Sciences (Public Health), University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2021 Feb 24;12:622415. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.622415. eCollection 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic is asking health care workers (HCWs) to meet extraordinary challenges. In turn, HCWs were experiencing tremendous psycho-social crisis as they have had to deal with unexpected emotional requirements (ERs) arising from caring for suffering and dying patients on a daily basis. In that context, recent studies have highlighted how HCWs working during the COVID-19 outbreak manifested extreme emotional and behavioral reactions that may have impacted their mental health, increasing the risk for developing post-traumatic stress symptoms. The aim of the study was to investigate post-traumatic stress symptoms, such as intrusion symptoms, as a potential mediator of the link between ERs and crying at work, and whether rumination moderates the relationship between ERs and intrusion-based PTS symptoms among HCWs who have had to deal with patients dying from COVID-19. An online cross-sectional study design was performed. A total of 543 Italian HCWs (physicians and nurses) participated in the study. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. We used the SPSS version of bootstrap-based PROCESS macro for testing the moderated mediation model. ERs had an indirect effect on crying at work through the mediating role of intrusion symptoms. Results from the moderated mediation model showed that rumination moderated the indirect effect of ERs on crying at work via intrusion symptoms, and this effect was significant only for high rumination. Furthermore, when we tested for an alternative model where rumination moderates the direct effect of ERs on crying at work, this moderation was not significant. As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing, there is an urgent need for decision-makers to rapidly implement interventions aimed at offering timely psychological support to HCWs, especially in those contexts where the risk of emotional labor associated to patients dying from COVID-19 is higher.
新冠疫情给医护人员带来了巨大挑战。相应地，医护人员正经历着巨大的心理社会危机，因为他们每天都要应对因照顾痛苦和垂死的患者而产生的意外情感需求。在这种背景下，最近的研究强调了在新冠疫情爆发期间工作的医护人员如何表现出极端的情绪和行为反应，这些反应可能影响了他们的心理健康，增加了出现创伤后应激症状的风险。本研究的目的是调查创伤后应激症状，如侵入性症状，作为情感需求与工作中哭泣之间联系的潜在中介，以及沉思是否调节了在不得不应对死于新冠的患者的医护人员中，情感需求与基于侵入性的创伤后应激症状之间的关系。我们采用了在线横断面研究设计。共有543名意大利医护人员（医生和护士）参与了这项研究。参与是自愿且匿名的。我们使用基于SPSS版本的自抽样PROCESS宏来测试调节中介模型。情感需求通过侵入性症状的中介作用对工作中哭泣产生间接影响。调节中介模型的结果表明，沉思调节了情感需求通过侵入性症状对工作中哭泣的间接影响，而且这种影响仅在高沉思水平时显著。此外，当我们测试一个替代模型，即沉思调节情感需求对工作中哭泣的直接影响时，这种调节并不显著。由于新冠疫情的第二波仍在持续，决策者迫切需要迅速实施干预措施，以便为医护人员提供及时的心理支持，尤其是在那些与死于新冠的患者相关的情感劳动风险较高的情况下。
