“I Don’t Want to Go to Work”: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Healthcare Worker Experiences from the Front- and Side-Lines of COVID-19

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers (HCW) were categorized as “essential” and “non-essential”, creating a division where some were “locked-in” a system with little ability to prepare for or control the oncoming crisis. Others were “locked-out” regardless of whether their skills might be useful. The purpose of this study was to systematically gather data over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic from HCW through an interprofessional lens to examine experiences of locked-out HCW. This convergent parallel mixed-methods study captured perspectives representing nearly two dozen professions through a survey, administered via social media, and video blogs. Analysis included logistic regression models of differences in outcome measures by professional category and Rapid Identification of Themes from Audio recordings (RITA) of video blogs. We collected 1299 baseline responses from 15 April 2020 to 16 March 2021. Of those responses, 12.1% reported no signs of burnout, while 21.9% reported four or more signs. Qualitative analysis identified four themes: (1) professional identity, (2) intrinsic stressors, (3) extrinsic factors, and (4) coping strategies. There are some differences in the experiences of locked-in and locked-out HCW. This did not always lead to differing reports of moral distress and burnout, and both groups struggled to cope with the realities of the pandemic.