Covid-19 Effects on the Mental Workload and Quality of Work Life in Iranian Nurses

INTRODUCTION: The mental health of people working in Covid-19 wards (nurses, doctors, etc.) may be compromised due to the specific conditions of the workplace and patients. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between mental burden and quality of work life in nurses in intensive care units of Covid-19 patients. METHOD: In this cross-sectional study, a sample of 200 people—100 nurses in care units for patients with COVID-19 (group 1) and 100 nurses in non-COVID-19 patient care units (group 2—in three university hospitals were obtained. These 200 samples were randomly extracted from the list of employees and selected. Data were collected using three questionnaires, including (1) a demographic, (2) the NASA-Task Load Index (1988) (Hart & Staveland, 1988) and (3) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Quality of Life. Data were analyzed using SPSS-24 software and descriptive and analytical statistical methods. RESULTS: The overall mean scores of nurses’ quality of work life were significantly different between the two groups (P < 0.05). The average score of quality of life in nurses caring for patients with COVID-19 is 92.57, more than nurses caring for patients without COVID-19, 79.43. Among the dimensions of mental workload: Performance and efficiency, with an average score of 77.32 ± 15.85, had the highest score, while discouragement and failure, with an average score of 58.04 ± 26.72, had the lowest score of mental workload. There is a significant difference between the mental load of work in the two groups (P = 0.001). There is a significant inverse relationship between total quality of work life and total mental workload (r = –14 and P = 0.01). CONCLUSION: In this study, it was observed that nurses caring for Covid-19 patients are in a more unfavorable situation in terms of the studied characteristics. Due to the work period, these nurses have a high workload and a low quality of work life to compensate for the mental and physical deficiencies required by a long presence in the work environment.