Cargando…

Psychological wellbeing of Australian community health service staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study

BACKGROUND: Hospital clinical staff have reported poor psychosocial wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Little is known about community health service staff who undertake various roles including education, advocacy and clinical services, and work with a range of clients. Few studies have collect...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Holton, Sara, Wynter, Karen, Peeters, Anna, Georgalas, Alexandra, Yeomanson, Ann, Rasmussen, Bodil
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10131448/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37101142
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09382-y
_version_ 1785031179805655040
author Holton, Sara
Wynter, Karen
Peeters, Anna
Georgalas, Alexandra
Yeomanson, Ann
Rasmussen, Bodil
author_facet Holton, Sara
Wynter, Karen
Peeters, Anna
Georgalas, Alexandra
Yeomanson, Ann
Rasmussen, Bodil
author_sort Holton, Sara
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Hospital clinical staff have reported poor psychosocial wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Little is known about community health service staff who undertake various roles including education, advocacy and clinical services, and work with a range of clients. Few studies have collected longitudinal data. The aim of this study was to assess the psychological wellbeing of community health service staff in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic at two time points in 2021. METHODS: A prospective cohort design with an anonymous cross-sectional online survey administered at two time points (March/April 2021; n = 681 and September/October 2021; n = 479). Staff (clinical and non-clinical roles) were recruited from eight community health services in Victoria, Australia. Psychological wellbeing was assessed using the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and resilience using the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). General linear models were used to measure the effects of survey time point, professional role and geographic location on DASS-21 subscale scores, adjusting for selected sociodemographic and health characteristics. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in respondent sociodemographic characteristics between the two surveys. Staff’s mental health declined as the pandemic continued. Adjusting for dependent children, professional role, general health status, geographic location, COVID-19 contact status and country of birth; depression, anxiety and stress scores were significantly higher for respondents in the second survey than the first (all p < 0.001). Professional role and geographic location were not statistically significantly associated with scores on any of the DASS-21 subscales. Higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress were reported among respondents who were younger, and had less resilience or poorer general health. CONCLUSIONS: The psychological wellbeing of community health staff was significantly worse at the time of the second survey than the first. The findings indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic has had an ongoing and cumulative negative impact on staff wellbeing. Staff would benefit from continued wellbeing support. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-023-09382-y.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10131448
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-101314482023-04-27 Psychological wellbeing of Australian community health service staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study Holton, Sara Wynter, Karen Peeters, Anna Georgalas, Alexandra Yeomanson, Ann Rasmussen, Bodil BMC Health Serv Res Research BACKGROUND: Hospital clinical staff have reported poor psychosocial wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Little is known about community health service staff who undertake various roles including education, advocacy and clinical services, and work with a range of clients. Few studies have collected longitudinal data. The aim of this study was to assess the psychological wellbeing of community health service staff in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic at two time points in 2021. METHODS: A prospective cohort design with an anonymous cross-sectional online survey administered at two time points (March/April 2021; n = 681 and September/October 2021; n = 479). Staff (clinical and non-clinical roles) were recruited from eight community health services in Victoria, Australia. Psychological wellbeing was assessed using the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and resilience using the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). General linear models were used to measure the effects of survey time point, professional role and geographic location on DASS-21 subscale scores, adjusting for selected sociodemographic and health characteristics. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in respondent sociodemographic characteristics between the two surveys. Staff’s mental health declined as the pandemic continued. Adjusting for dependent children, professional role, general health status, geographic location, COVID-19 contact status and country of birth; depression, anxiety and stress scores were significantly higher for respondents in the second survey than the first (all p < 0.001). Professional role and geographic location were not statistically significantly associated with scores on any of the DASS-21 subscales. Higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress were reported among respondents who were younger, and had less resilience or poorer general health. CONCLUSIONS: The psychological wellbeing of community health staff was significantly worse at the time of the second survey than the first. The findings indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic has had an ongoing and cumulative negative impact on staff wellbeing. Staff would benefit from continued wellbeing support. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-023-09382-y. BioMed Central 2023-04-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10131448/ /pubmed/37101142 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09382-y Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Holton, Sara
Wynter, Karen
Peeters, Anna
Georgalas, Alexandra
Yeomanson, Ann
Rasmussen, Bodil
Psychological wellbeing of Australian community health service staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study
title Psychological wellbeing of Australian community health service staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study
title_full Psychological wellbeing of Australian community health service staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study
title_fullStr Psychological wellbeing of Australian community health service staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study
title_full_unstemmed Psychological wellbeing of Australian community health service staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study
title_short Psychological wellbeing of Australian community health service staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study
title_sort psychological wellbeing of australian community health service staff during the covid-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10131448/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37101142
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09382-y
work_keys_str_mv AT holtonsara psychologicalwellbeingofaustraliancommunityhealthservicestaffduringthecovid19pandemicalongitudinalcohortstudy
AT wynterkaren psychologicalwellbeingofaustraliancommunityhealthservicestaffduringthecovid19pandemicalongitudinalcohortstudy
AT peetersanna psychologicalwellbeingofaustraliancommunityhealthservicestaffduringthecovid19pandemicalongitudinalcohortstudy
AT georgalasalexandra psychologicalwellbeingofaustraliancommunityhealthservicestaffduringthecovid19pandemicalongitudinalcohortstudy
AT yeomansonann psychologicalwellbeingofaustraliancommunityhealthservicestaffduringthecovid19pandemicalongitudinalcohortstudy
AT rasmussenbodil psychologicalwellbeingofaustraliancommunityhealthservicestaffduringthecovid19pandemicalongitudinalcohortstudy