| الوصف: |
INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has strongly impacted mental health outcomes of healthcare workers (HWs). In spite of the large literature reporting on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, only a few studies focused on potential positive aspects that may follow the exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic, namely post-traumatic growth (PTG) among HWs. OBJECTIVES: In a large sample of Italian HWs, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of PTSD, its correlates and whether PTG dimensions independently affect the risk of PTSD during the first COVID-19 wave. METHODS: An online self-report survey was submitted to HWs throughout physicians’ and nurses’ associations, social networks and researchers’ direct contacts, between April 4th and May 13th, 2020. Sociodemographic data, information about possible COVID-19 related stressful events, Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) and PTG Inventory-Short Form (PTGI-SF) scores were collected. IES-R and PTGI-SF scores were compared between subjects based on main sociodemographic, work- and COVID-19-related variables using the Student T-test or the one-way ANOVA where appropriate. Post-hoc comparisons were conducted using the Tukey test. Participants with total IES-R score >32 were assigned a provisional PTSD diagnosis and binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate the contribution of each variable to the provisional PTSD diagnosis. RESULTS: Out of 930 respondents, 256 (27,1%) reported a provisional PTSD diagnosis. Female sex (p<.001), separation from cohabiting family (p<.001), family members infected with (p<.05) or deceased due to (p<.05) COVID-19, increased workload (p<.05), relocation to a different work unit (p<.05) and unusual exposure to sufferance (p<.001) were significantly associated with higher IES-R mean scores. The median PTGI-SF score was 24. Factors associated with greater mean PTGI-SF scores were female gender (p<.001), being a nurse (p<.05), being older than 40 years (p<.05), and increased workload . |