Health Care Worker Wellness Interventions during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction:

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only put a strain on the health care system throughout the world but has had an extreme impact on health care workers caring for these patients on a daily basis. These workers have been isolated from their families and experienced significant stress and loss at work and home. Some health care workers experienced rationing of care, inadequate personal protective equipment, and found themselves without the resources needed to care for patients. This paper reports on a systematic review of wellness and stress interventions targeting healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Method:

A systematic review of Pubmed and SCOPUS articles published between January 1, 2020 and November 1, 2022 was conducted using the terms “healthcare worker”, “nurse”, “doctor”, “paramedic”, ”emergency medical technician”, “mental health”, “resilience”, “wellness”, “stress”, “sleep” , “intervention”, “Covid-19”, “coronavirus”, and “pandemic.” These results were imported into Covidence. Inclusion criteria were studies on interventions of healthcare workers. Exclusion criteria were papers not describing health care workers, papers not describing interventions, health care workers not caring for COVID19 patients, and papers not written in English.

Results:

A total of 26 papers were included in the analysis after the final screen. These papers were examined and sorted into groups based on the types of interventions on health care workers. The groups of interventions included 1. Psychological interventions, 2. Wellness or well-being interventions, 3. Work-related interventions, and 4. Pharmacologic interventions. Two studies were longitudinal in nature. The most common intervention was psychological (10), followed by work-related interventions (6).

Conclusion:

Psychological interventions were the most commonly deployed and included hotline establishment or speaking with a therapist. This was followed by wellness interventions such as exercise, sleep regulation, breathing exercises, and healthy eating. Fewer interventions were included in the work-related or pharmacologic categories. Data regarding effectiveness and feasibility of interventions was heterogenous.