To Compare The Coping Strategies, Emotional Reactions, Burnout And Resilience In Doctors Caring And Not Caring For Covid19 Patients

Abstract

Background: Rapid transmission of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) causing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) occurred all across the world in few months causing a pandemic. Frontline medical staff as a result of heavy workload, insufficient protective equipment, a lack of information of the pathogen, and direct contact with patients faced the fear of getting infected themselves and their family. Anxiety, stress, and other negative emotions have led to a series of psychological crises in them.

Aim: To compare the coping strategies, emotional reactions, burnout and resilience in doctors caring and not caring for COVID19 patients.

Materials And Methods: Total 304 Doctors in tertiary care hospitals out of which 163 were caring and 141 were not caring for COVID19 patients participated in our study. Both groups were assessing and compared using The Fear of COVID-19 Scale, the coronavirus anxiety scale (CAS), Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2), Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 (PC-PTSD-5), Brief COPE, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale abbreviated, Abbreviated Maslach Burnout Inventory, Two-Item Conjoint Screen (TICS)

Results: All participants those who did COVID duty and those who did not do it showed high level of resilience though on comparison no significant different was found between two groups. Those who did not do COVID duty were scored higher in emotion focused coping strategies whereas who did not do COVID duty scored higher in avoidant coping strategies. Abbreviated version of Maslach Burnout Inventory indicated a great personal accomplishment, less depersonalization and low emotional exhaustion in all the participants irrespective of their duty status.

Conclusion: On comparing those who did COVID duties against those who haven’t, it was found that those who did not do COVID duty used more emotion-focused ways to cope and those who were doing COVID duties were using harmful avoidant coping to manage their daily chores. All the doctors participating in study showed high resilience irrespective of whether they did COVID duty or not.