Burnout Syndrome and Stress Coping in Healthcare Workers in COVID-19 Era

Author(s): Víctor A Vera-Monge, Mariona Alier, Christoper A Alarcon-Ruiz, Natalia Artigas-Graells, Montserrat Perez-Franco, Sebastià Aupí-Escarrà, Almudena Boix-Lago, Miguel Torral

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a high percentage of mental problems in health workers community. We describe the different strategies for stress coping and their relationship with the prevalence of burnout syndrome in healthcare workers. An electronic survey was done by using the brief COPE 28 and the Malasch Burnout Inventory (MBI) used by health workers. 197 workers were surveyed, the majority were women (80.6%) between 30 and 39 years old (27.2%), 88.6% had direct contact with COVID-19 patients. 39.1% had high emotional exhaustion, 23.4% high depersonalization and 34.0% low personal accomplishment; 9.6% had burnout syndrome. Workers older than 30, had lower prevalence of burnout than those between 20 and 29 years old. Workers with burnout presented less coping focused on problems (0.8 ± 0.4) and more focused on emotion (1.2 ± 0.3). Active coping, positive reframing and acceptance, were associated with a lower prevalence of burnout.