- Published
- 27 September 2021
- Journal article
Exploring the Well-being of Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Protocol for a Prospective Longitudinal Study
- Authors
-
- Source
- JMIR Research Protocols
Full text
Abstract
Background: Health care workers (HCWs) have experienced several stressors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Structural stressors, including extended work hours, redeployment, and changes in organizational mandates, often intersect with interpersonal and personal stressors, such as caring for those with COVID-19 infections; worrying about infection of self, family, and loved ones; working despite shortages of personal protective equipment; and encountering various difficult moral-ethical dilemmas.
Objective: The paper describes the protocol for a longitudinal study seeking to capture the unique experiences, challenges, and changes faced by HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study seeks to explore the impact of COVID-19 on the mental well-being of HCWs with a particular focus on moral distress, perceptions of and satisfaction with delivery of care, and how changes in work structure are tolerated among HCWs providing clinical services.
Methods: A prospective longitudinal design is employed to assess HCWs’ experiences across domains of mental health (depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and well-being), moral distress and moral reasoning, work-related changes and telehealth, organizational responses to COVID-19 concerns, and experiences with COVID-19 infections to self and to others. We recruited HCWs from across Canada through convenience snowball sampling to participate in either a short-form or long-form web-based survey at baseline. Respondents to the baseline survey are invited to complete a follow-up survey every 3 months, for a total of 18 months.
Results: A total of 1926 participants completed baseline surveys between June 26 and December 31, 2020, and 1859 participants provided their emails to contact them to participate in follow-up surveys. As of July 2021, data collection is ongoing, with participants nearing the 6- or 9-month follow-up periods depending on their initial time of self-enrollment.
Conclusions: This protocol describes a study that will provide unique insights into the immediate and longitudinal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the dimensions of mental health, moral distress, health care delivery, and workplace environment of HCWs. The feasibility and acceptability of implementing a short-form and long-form survey on participant engagement and data retention will also be discussed. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/32663
Rights
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Research Protocols, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.researchprotocols.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
Cite as
Liu, J., Nazarov, A., Plouffe, R., Forchuk, C., Deda, E., Gargala, D., Le, T., Bourret-Gheysen, J., Soares, V., Nouri, M., Hosseiny, F., Smith, P., Roth, M., MacDougall, A., Marlborough, M., Jetly, R., Heber, A., Albuquerque, J., Lanius, R., Balderson, K., Dupuis, G., Mehta, V. & Don Richardson, J. 2021, 'Exploring the Well-being of Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Protocol for a Prospective Longitudinal Study', JMIR Research Protocols, 10(9), article no: e32663. https://doi.org/10.2196/32663