Alexithymia, Burnout, and Hopelessness in a Large Sample of Healthcare Workers during the Third Wave of COVID-19 in Italy.

In the present study, we aimed to assess the frequency of and the relationships between alexithymia, burnout, and hopelessness in a large sample of healthcare workers (HCWs) during the third wave of COVID-19 in Italy. Alexithymia was evaluated by the Italian version of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and its subscales Difficulty in Identifying Feelings (DIF), Difficulty in Describing Feelings (DDF), and Externally Oriented Thinking (EOT), burnout was measured with the scales emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalisation (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA) of the Maslach Burnout Test (MBI), hopelessness was measured using the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), and irritability (IRR), depression (DEP), and anxiety (ANX) were evaluated with the Italian version of the Irritability' Depression' Anxiety Scale (IDA). This cross-sectional study recruited a sample of 1445 HCWs from a large urban healthcare facility in Italy from 1 May to 31 June 2021.