Evaluation of Clinical Job Demands, Job Resources, and a Novel Intervention on Measures of Health Care Worker Stress at a Community Hospital Pre and Post COVID-19

Sels, J.; Carroll, D.; Duffee, D.

Abstract: Objective: To explore the relationship and identity of Health Care Worker stressors to a measure of perceived burnout and to a novel intervention tool. Participants and Methods: From July 2019 to June 2020, we surveyed Health Care Workers (HCW) pre and post COVID19 in an independent local community hospital for burnout with the Health Care Provider Wellness Assessment tool. Linear regression and means comparison were used to identify overall job demand and resource perception with burnout, unique stressor portraits by provider subtype and mean survey scores between those who did or did not voluntarily complete at least 14 days of a 28 day novel self-help intervention tool. Results: Regarding the pre COVID-19 data, of 73 respondents, there was statistically significant (p<.01) correlation between overall job demands (directly) and resources (inversely) with burnout intensity. With respect to the HCW stressor characteristic analyses there was statistical significance (p<.05) between the mean frequency occurrence of the top 5 stressors identified by respondent subtype when compared to the mean occurrence of overall individual responses within the corresponding subtype. Finally, although limited by a low number of respondents, the intervention tool analysis suggested a therapeutic trend toward disruption of the stress-burnout relationship. Regarding the post COVID-19 data, 18 respondents did not show statistically significant characterizable stressor portraits (ie stressors were present but not patternable). Conclusion: Unique stressor portraits were identified by HCW subtype which correlated with more intense burnout self-perception. Additionally, there was a trend toward self-help tool efficacy in mitigating burnout