Health care professional’s perceived stress levels and novel brief COPE-4 factor structure-based assessment of coping methods during COVID-19 pandemic in India: A multi-modal cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: SARS-CoV-19 or popularly known as COVID-19 is recognized as a global public health emergency and a pandemic necessitating readiness of the health system and its operational work force to address the unprecedent challenge. OBJECTIVE: To assess perceived stress and coping methods using novel brief COPE-4 factor structure and narrate thematic testimonials among health care professionals involved in COVID care in India. SETTINGS AND DESIGNS: Health care settings and multi-state cross-sectional study. METHODS AND MATERIAL: A cross sectional mixed-methods study, with multi-modal aids was undertaken during April-May, 2020 using a novel brief COPE-4 Factor structure. Oral informed consent was obtained to document narrative testimonials verbatim from interviews among doctors, nurse practitioners. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: The web-survey data from Google forms analyzed using STATA (Ver 12.0) statistical package. The interview content was subjected to manual inductive thematic coding, grouped into piles to identify broad themes as main categories. RESULTS: Among total 218 respondents, 75 (34.4%) were female and 143 (65.6%) male, mean age of 34.71 (SD = 8.9) years. Majority of the respondents were medical post-graduates on duty (38%) followed by nurses (25%) and public health professionals (14%). Slightly higher levels of stress seen among respondents involved in COVID-19 duty, compared to those not involved (p < 0.001) and positive thinking is the major coping method adopted. CONCLUSIONS: Appraising the coping mechanisms of health care professionals reveals positive outlook amidst medium levels of perceived stress while providing COVID-19 pandemic related health care services.