Resilient, but for how long? The relationships between temperament, burnout, and mental health in healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic

INTRODUCTION: Dispositional traits of wellbeing and stress-reaction are strong predictors of mood symptoms following stressful life events, and the COVID-19 pandemic introduced many life stressors, especially for healthcare workers. METHODS: We longitudinally investigated the relationships among positive and negative temperament group status (created according to wellbeing and stress-reaction personality measures), burnout (exhaustion, interpersonal disengagement), COVID concern (e.g., health, money worries), and moral injury (personal acts, others’ acts) as predictors of generalized anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms in 435 healthcare workers. Participants were employees in healthcare settings in North Central Florida who completed online surveys monthly for 8 months starting in October/November 2020. Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire subscale scores for stress-reaction and wellbeing were subjected to K-means cluster analyses that identified two groups of individuals, those with high stress-reaction and low wellbeing (negative temperament) and those with the opposite pattern defined as positive temperament (low stress-reaction and high wellbeing). Repeated measures ANOVAs assessed all time points and ANCOVAs assessed the biggest change at timepoint 2 while controlling for baseline symptoms. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The negative temperament group reported greater mood symptoms, burnout, and COVID concern, than positive temperament participants overall, and negative participants’ scores decreased over time while positive participants’ scores increased over time. Burnout appeared to most strongly mediate this group-by-time interaction, with the burnout exhaustion scale driving anxiety and depression symptoms. PTSD symptoms were also related to COVID-19 health worry and negative temperament. Overall, results suggest that individuals with higher stress-reactions and more negative outlooks on life were at risk for anxiety, depression, and PTSD early in the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas individuals with positive temperament traits became more exhausted and thus more symptomatic over time. Targeting interventions to reduce mood symptoms in negative temperament individuals and prevent burnout/exhaustion in positive temperament individuals early in an extended crisis may be an efficient and effective approach to reduce the mental health burden on essential workers.