Stress coping strategies used by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic

INTRODUCTION: The risk of getting SARS-CoV-2 infection, worries about exposing loved ones, anxiety and frustration, emotional and physical exhaustion, burn out, a feeling of being overwhelmed, and struggles and challenges with parenting are a few among many factors that affect nurses’ personal lives and professional functioning. The aim of the research is to assess nurses’ level of stress during the COVID-19 pandemic and their sense of self-efficacy, and to learn what coping strategies they use. METHODOLOGY/METHODS: The study was carried out online and based on the diagnostic poll method, using an original survey questionnaire, the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES 10–40), the Mini-COPE questionnaire (0–3), and the Perceived Stress Scale PSS-10 (0–40). The respondent group was made up of nurses (n = 220) who provide health services in inpatient and outpatient health care institutions in the northeastern region of Poland. The statistical analysis was performed using the STATISTICA 13.0 package (StatSoft). The distribution of variables was checked with Shapiro-Wilk tests. The Mann–Whitney U test was used to compare two independent samples, while the Kruskal–Wallis test was used to compare more samples. The adopted statistical significance level was p < 0.05. Multivariate regression analysis was applied to determine which factors were related to the level of stress. RESULTS: The mean age of the participants was 43.3 years. The vast majority were women (96.4). The mean work experience of the nurses was over 20 years (58.2%). A total of 62.3% worked directly with patients in hospitals, including 11.8% respondents working at COVID-19 units and 37.7% working at primary care institutions. The analyses show that the respondents represented a high level of stress (PSS-10 – 20.9), related to their work experience as a nurse (β −0.250, p = 0.014), the number of hours worked a month (β 0.156, p = 0.015), and self-assessed health status (β −0.145, p = 0.037). They declared an average sense of self-efficacy (GSES – 29.1), which significantly depended on the nurses’ places of employment (p = 0.044). Out of stress coping strategies (Mini-COPE), the younger nurses mentioned venting (p = 0.010), instrumental support (p = 0.011), sense of humour (p = 0.013) and self-blame (0.031). Practice nurses also chose the strategy of behavioral disengagement (p = 0.032), and nurse managers chose the strategy of planning (p = 0.018). CONCLUSIONS: The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need to implement some strategies to protect nurses’ mental health and to take extensive prevention measures in critical situations. Special attention should be given to nurses who are younger and have shorter work experience. It is also important to monitor nurses’ working time and health status, and those who work at outpatient health care institutions should be given more support and information.