Soft Skills as a Professional Platform in the Processes of Adaptation of Healthcare Workers to Crisis Situations

Abstract

Introduction: Hospital employees have become one of the main risk groups for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In extreme conditions of the pandemic and over a short period of time, healthcare professionals were forced to repurpose their work, learn a significant amount of new information, and acquire novel professional competencies. Yet, the importance of supra-professional skills and competencies (so-called “soft skills”) for their job should not be underestimated, especially in crisis situations. Objective: To establish the role of soft skills in the adaptation of medical workers to severe conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and methods: We conducted an anonymous questionnaire-based survey of 638 hospital workers on the basis of the Google platform. The form containing two built-in scales was specially developed by the authors to assess the level of emotional intelligence (EQ) and adaptability of hospital employees under crisis conditions. Results: We found that most employees (78.7 %) had a moderate EQ level, while 13.0 % and 8.3 % had high and low EQ levels, respectively. We established that 100 % of the respondents with low EQ and 76.5 % of the respondents with moderate EQ had low adaptability; in the rest 23.5 % of the employees with moderate EQ, the level of adaptability was assessed as medium. Individuals with high EQ demonstrated medium (53.0 %) and high (44.6 %) levels of adaptability to the situation and only 2.4 % found it difficult to adapt to rapid changes. The estimated Spearman’s correlation coefficient of 0.43 (p < 0.001) showed a moderate strength of correlation between the EQ level and adaptability. Conclusions: Highly developed soft skills contribute to better adaptation of employees to the new reality. Under current conditions, HR managers shall concentrate on introducing soft skills development training for healthcare professionals.