COVID-19 and Healthcare Staff Wellbeing

Abstract

This conceptual chapter offers a critical review of contemporary theory and research in relation to ‘burnout' and ‘moral injury' to consider how understandings of burnout and moral injury can be usefully applied to healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors find that whilst there are significant overlaps in the conceptualisation of ‘burnout' and ‘moral injury', there is also significant potential in drawing on systemic understandings of moral injury originating in military literature to understand and support healthcare workers. A focus on the systemic and organisational support needed to work with moral injury in healthcare staff would reduce staff burnout, time-off, and turnover improving patient outcomes and offering economic advantages to healthcare organisations. Whilst much research has been undertaken in relation to healthcare staff burnout, this chapter offers an original contribution to knowledge by offering a conceptual account of the usefulness of systemic understandings of moral injury in healthcare settings during the COVID-19 pandemic.