Publikationen

Trajectories of Mental Distress and Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Healthcare Workers

2025-03-06T00:00:00Z

Trajectories of Mental Distress and Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Healthcare Workers Baranowski, Andreas M.; Tüttenberg, Simone C.; Culmann, Anna C.; Matthias, Julia-K.; Maus, Katja; Blank, Rebecca; Erim, Yesim; Morawa, Eva; Beschoner, Petra; Jerg-Bretzke, Lucia; Albus, Christian; Weidner, Kerstin; Radbruch, Lukas; Richter, Cornelia; Geiser, Franziska Background/Objectives: The recent COVID-19 pandemic posed a significant psychological challenge for healthcare workers. Resilience and the extent of psychological stress varied across professional groups and individual circumstances. This study aims to longitudinally capture the trajectories of psychological stress and resilience among medical personnel during the pandemic and identify various contributing factors. Methods: Over a period of three years, healthcare workers from five locations (Bonn, Cologne, Ulm, Erlangen, and Dresden) were surveyed regarding their psychological stress (PHQ-4) and other aspects of mental health. Data were collected at five different points during the pandemic. Using Growth Mixture Modeling (GMM), various stress trajectories during the crisis were modeled without initial adjustment for covariates to allow for an unbiased identification of latent classes. Differences in demographic and occupational factors (e.g., age, gender, profession) were analyzed across the identified trajectory groups in subsequent steps. Results: The application of GMM revealed three distinct profiles of psychological stress and resilience among the respondents, largely consistent with the literature. The largest group was the 'resilience' group (81%), followed by the 'recovery' (10%) and 'delayed' groups (9%). Group membership was consistent with self-reported trajectories over the course of the pandemic. It was not possible to predict individual trajectories based on the results of a short resilience questionnaire (RS-5). Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic had multiple psychological impacts on healthcare workers, manifesting in clearly differentiated group trajectories of distress over time. While a majority of respondents in this sample exhibited a stable trajectory with low distress, other groups showed varying stress responses over time. These findings highlight the necessity of longitudinal approaches to understand the complex interplay of stressors and coping mechanisms during prolonged crises.

‘We are all in the same boat’: a qualitative cross-sectional analysis of COVID-19 pandemic imagery in scientific literature and its use for people working in the German healthcare sector

2024-02-05T00:00:00Z

‘We are all in the same boat’: a qualitative cross-sectional analysis of COVID-19 pandemic imagery in scientific literature and its use for people working in the German healthcare sector Baranowski, Andreas M.; Blank, Rebecca; Maus, Katja; Tüttenberg, Simone C.; Matthias, Julia-Katharina; Culmann, Anna C.; Radbruch, Lukas; Richter, Cornelia; Geiser, Franziska Background: The COVID-19 pandemic presents a significant challenge to professional responders in healthcare settings. This is reflected in the language used to describe the pandemic in the professional literature of the respective professions. The aim of this multidisciplinary study was to analyze the linguistic imagery in the relevant professional literature and to determine the identification of different professional groups with it and its emotional effects.
Method: A list of 14 typical, widespread and differing imageries for COVID-19 in form of single sentences (e.g., “Until the pandemic is over, we can only run on sight.”) were presented to 1,795 healthcare professionals in an online survey. The imageries had been extracted from a qualitative search in more than 3,500 international professional journals in medicine, psychology and theology. Ratings of agreement with these imageries and feelings about them were subjected to factor analysis.
Results: Based on the list of imageries presented, it was possible to identify three factors for high/low agreement by experiences, and two factors for high/low induced feelings. Broad agreement emerged for imageries on “fight against the crisis” and “lessons learned from the crisis”, while imageries on “acceptance of uncontrollability” tended to be rejected. Imageries of “challenges” tended to lead to a sense of empowerment among subjects, while imageries of “humility” tended to lead to a sense of helplessness.
Conclusion: Based on the qualitative and subsequential quantitative analysis, several factors for imageries for the COVID-19 pandemic were identified that have been used in the literature. Agreement with imageries is mixed, as is the assessment of how helpful they are.

Spirituality and anxiety in pastoral care workers and physicians in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

2024-03-11T00:00:00Z

Spirituality and anxiety in pastoral care workers and physicians in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic Culmann, Anna Caroline; Baranowski, Andreas M.; Matthias, Julia-Katharina; Tüttenberg, Simone C.; Belschner, Wilfried; Erim, Yesim; Morawa, Eva; Beschoner, Petra; Jerg-Bretzke, Lucia; Albus, Christian; Steudte-Schmiedgen, Susann; Reuter, Martin; Geiser, Franziska Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had serious impact on the well-being of health care workers and highlighted the need for resources to help hospital staff to cope with psychologically negative consequences. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potentially protective effect of spirituality, as measured by the construct of transpersonal trust, against anxiety in physicians and in hospital pastoral care workers. In addition, transpersonal trust was compared to the effects of other potential resources, namely sense of coherence, optimism, and resilience. We also explored the relationship between transpersonal trust and anxiety and how it was moderated by sense of coherence and expected a significant effect.
Method: The sample included N = 405 participants (n = 151 pastoral care workers and n = 254 physicians) who completed an online survey during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic between 20th April and 05th July, 2020, that comprised established questionnaires assessing anxiety, transpersonal trust, sense of coherence, and resilience.
Results: There was no statistically significant negative relationship between transpersonal trust and anxiety in either profession or broken down by occupational group. Multiple regression analysis revealed that sense of coherence inversely predicted generalized anxiety, while transpersonal trust, resilience, and optimism did not. As hypothesized, the association between transpersonal trust and anxiety was moderated by sense of coherence. However, we could not confirm our hypothesis of a protective effect of transpersonal trust against anxiety.
Conclusion: Our results point to the significant role of sense of coherence as a protective factor against anxiety and highlight the complexity of the relationship among spirituality, transpersonal trust, and anxiety.