Fear of COVID-19, emotional exhaustion, and care quality experience in nursing home staff during the COVID-19 pandemic

Emin Altintas; Abdel-Halim Boudoukha; Yasemin Karaca; Andréa Lizio; Marion Luyat; Karim Gallouj; Mohamad El Haj

doi:10.1016/j.archger.2022.104745

Fear of COVID-19, emotional exhaustion, and care quality experience in nursing home staff during the COVID-19 pandemic

Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2022 Sep-Oct:102:104745. doi: 10.1016/j.archger.2022.104745. Epub 2022 Jun 6.

Authors

Emin Altintas¹, Abdel-Halim Boudoukha², Yasemin Karaca³, Andréa Lizio⁴, Marion Luyat⁵, Karim Gallouj⁶, Mohamad El Haj⁷

Affiliations

¹ Univ. Lille, ULR 4072 - PSITEC - Psychologie : Interactions, Temps, Emotions, Cognition, F-59000 Lille, France; Centre Hospitalier de Tourcoing, Unité de Gériatrie, Tourcoing, France. Electronic address: emin.altintas@univ-lille.fr.
² Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire (EA 4638), Université de Nantes, Nantes, France.
³ Centre Hospitalier de Roubaix, Service de Pédiatrie, Roubaix, France.
⁴ Centre Hospitalier de Tourcoing, Unité de Gériatrie, Tourcoing, France.
⁵ Univ. Lille, ULR 4072 - PSITEC - Psychologie : Interactions, Temps, Emotions, Cognition, F-59000 Lille, France.
⁶ Univ. Lille, ULR 4072 - PSITEC - Psychologie : Interactions, Temps, Emotions, Cognition, F-59000 Lille, France; Centre Hospitalier de Tourcoing, Unité de Gériatrie, Tourcoing, France.
⁷ Centre Hospitalier de Tourcoing, Unité de Gériatrie, Tourcoing, France; Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire (EA 4638), Université de Nantes, Nantes, France; Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.

Abstract

Background: Nursing home staff have been adversely impacted throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, facing difficulties in providing patient care. The aim of this study was to explore health workers' perception regarding their own care quality experience in nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst the second wave of the pandemic, we investigated the relationships between fear of COVID-19 and care quality experiences in nursing homes with emotional exhaustion (EE) as a mediating role. We hypothesized that EE is associated with fear of COVID-19 and care quality experience among nursing home staff. Furthermore, we predicted that EE would mediate the relationships between fear of COVID-19 and care quality experience.

Methods: During the second wave of COVID-19 (October to December 2020), we administered surveys to a large sample of 129 French nursing home staff with a mean age of 38.47 ± 10.31 who were directly and repeatedly exposed to COVID-19. We assessed their emotional exhaustion (EE) and care quality experience in the workplace via subjective indicators using self-reported scales.

Results: In the context of COVID-19, low to severe emotional exhaustion levels were found among nursing home staff, and these levels were associated with care quality experience as well as fear of COVID-19. The groups with low and severe levels of EE reported the highest levels of fear of COVID-19. The groups with moderate and severe levels of EE reported the lowest levels of care quality experience. Lastly, the relationships between fear of COVID-19 and care quality experience were mediated by EE.

Conclusions: The findings made by the present study focused on the role of emotional coping responses to COVID-19. EE was associated positively with fear of COVID-19 and negatively with care quality experience. Furthermore, EE was found to mediate the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and care quality experience. We discuss these findings as they relate to palliative care issues in nursing homes and the manner in which emotional exhaustion ought to be addressed among nursing home staff.

Keywords: COVID-19; Care quality perception; Emotional exhaustion; Nursing homes; Workplace.

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Fear
Humans
Nursing Homes
Pandemics
Quality of Health Care