Emotional Fatigue, Elevated Anxiety Symptoms, and Sustained Psychological Distress in Frontline Medical Staff and Nurses Working with COVID-19 Patients
Robert Wells, Renata MiklencicovaABSTRACT. Based on an in-depth survey of the literature, the purpose of the paper is to explore emotional fatigue, elevated anxiety symptoms, and sustained psychological distress in frontline medical staff and nurses working with COVID-19 patients. Using and replicating data from APIC, BMA, Bozdağ and Ergün (2020), Gorini et al. (2020), IPPR, The Irish COVID-19 Psychological Survey, MHA, NNU, Rek et al. (2020), SEIU, and YouGov, we performed analyses and made estimates regarding how attending to suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients is related to psychological distress, illness fears, elevated anxiety symptoms, burnout syndrome, clinically significant depression, and emotional fatigue in frontline healthcare workers. Descriptive statistics of compiled data from the completed surveys were calculated when appropriate.
JEL codes: H51; H75; I12; I18; D91
Keywords: COVID-19; emotional fatigue, anxiety symptom; psychological distress
How to cite: Wells, R., and Miklencicova, R. (2021). “Emotional Fatigue, Elevated Anxiety Symptoms, and Sustained Psychological Distress in Frontline Medical Staff and Nurses Working with COVID-19 Patients,” Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management 9(2): 49–62. doi: 10.22381/pihrm9220214.
Received 18 April 2021 • Received in revised form 14 November 2021
Accepted 19 November 2021 • Available online 25 November 2021