Pandemic scars: long-term impact of COVID-19 on work stress among healthcare workers in China.

Purpose: This study mainly focused on the long-term effect of different risk exposure levels and prior anti-epidemic experience of healthcare workers in mitigating COVID-19 on their work stress in the post-COVID era.

Design/methodology/approach: The study sample included 359 physicians, 619 nurses, 229 technicians and 212 administrators, for a total of 1,419 healthcare workers working in the Lanzhou area during the investigation. Data were analyzed by multivariate regression models.

Findings: Our findings indicated that the interaction between pandemic effect mitigation experience and high-risk exposure significantly affected healthcare workers in the post-COVID era by increasing their work stress ( < 0.001) and reducing their rest time ( < 0.001). Healthcare workers may have experienced worse outcomes in the long term if they had higher levels of risk exposure and more experience in fighting epidemics. Furthermore, poor mental health ( < 0.001) and prior experience with SARS ( < 0.001) further amplified these adverse effects. However, surprisingly, we did not observe any effect of prior anti-epidemic experience or high-risk exposure on the mental health of healthcare workers in the post-COVID era ( > 0.1).

Research Limitations/implications: The adverse impact of COVID-19 may have left long-lasting effects on Health professionals (HPs), particularly those with high Risk exposure (RE) and more mitigation experience. Poor Mental health (MH) and previous experience in mitigating previous similar outbreaks (such as SARS) are risk factors that should be considered. Support programs must be designed and promoted to help HPs respond and improve their performance.

Originality/value: Our study presents compelling evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic will have long-term detrimental effects on the work stress of healthcare workers.