The Ever-Changing Present & Uncertain Future: Clinician Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Dimensional Analysis (GP754)

OUTCOMES: 1. Illustrate the dimensions of clinician distress by narratively describing the phenomenon in caring for patients with COVID-19 2. Describe the clinical, research, and ethical implications of clinician distress on patients, families, and clinicians IMPORTANCE: During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare clinicians have experienced unprecedented physical and psychological distress. Many expressed emotions in the social media, yet little research has been conducted on the emotional experience of these clinicians. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to understand the range of emotions expressed by clinicians through various media outlets. METHODS: A qualitative dimensional analysis was used with the goal of breaking down the concept of clinician distress into its smallest parts, including “attributes, interconnections, context, process, and implications” and then reconstructing the concept with a new and clearer understanding. Search strategy centered around data written in the clinician's voice through published editorials, commentaries, and opinion pieces from January 1, 2020 through July 22, 2020. Total records of the combined searches resulted in 545 editorials; after deduplication and full text review, 10 journal editorials and 24 newspaper editorials were included in analysis. RESULTS: A narrative of clinician distress during the COVID-19 pandemic among American clinicians emerged, grounded by the perspective of a clinician's perceptions of clinical care in the context of an ever-changing present and uncertain future, where a clinician recognizes within themselves one of the following conditions: an emotional response or a conflict in tandem with a significant role change resulting in a process of the inability to feel and act according to one's values due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to the ultimate consequence of clinician distress. IMPACT: This study adds to the concept of clinician distress: expanding the understanding of clinician distress during a global pandemic through published work written by clinicians themselves, including the emotional aspects of caring for patients, developing a new framework for understanding clinician distress by analyzing clinicians’ own written words, and exploring real-time distress through a novel qualitative method to better understand the clinicians’ experiences.