Studying the effects of COVID-19 on health care providers

It has been a full year since COVID-19 changed our world. We have spent 12 months as a community physically distancing and working to eradicate the virus, and our front line health care professionals have been also challenged every day to keep patients safe in the midst of rising cases and outbreaks.

The anxiety, depression and stress, coupled with devastating loss of patients has put the mental health of staff at risk.

Last year, the Waypoint Research Institute began a project in partnership with Georgian College to benefit healthcare workers. ECHOES, or Effects of COVID-19 on Healthcare Providers: Opportunities for Education and Support is a two-part project aimed at improving the mental wellbeing and resiliency of frontline workers throughout the pandemic and into the future.

The first part uses research methods to understand the experiences of health care providers with the pandemic and how the pandemic is impacting the work they do with patients. Individual interviews and surveys provide healthcare workers with an opportunity to describe their current situation and to explain their ideas on additional resources that could help them.

The study collected responses from healthcare providers between August 20th and November 18th, 2020 to 15 interviews and 41 open-ended questionnaires. Their answers determined three prominent themes in the data: Concern for Patient Quality of Life, Desire for Change, and The Unexpected Outcome of Redeployment.

Areas of concern and challenges they faced due to the pandemic include witnessing the impact of pandemic restrictions on patients' living situations and health struggles influenced health care providers’ experiences as well as expressed a desire to move away from an “emergency-crisis-mode” to proactive and integrated health care strategies.

Although challenging, healthcare providers identified a stronger sense of community, better understanding of different roles and what each provider contributed to the patient experience as a result of being deployed to a different role.

This outcome was brought on by either fulfilling a different patient care role, or by noticing the effect that the absence of that role had on patients.

The second part of the project involves using this initial research to develop education and supports to improve wellness and abilities of these essential workers to continue delivering quality mental health care during the pandemic recovery.

In December 2020, the Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre in Barrie joined the study, which allows the research to include staff of an acute hospital to share their experience.

Ultimately, the researchers hope the skills developed throughout this program will improve the mental wellbeing and resiliency of frontline workers throughout the pandemic and into the future. Improving the health of frontline workers will ensure they can continue to provide the community with the best care possible.