Insights into general practitioners' self-care across 38 countries during the pandemic: a cross-sectional study

BMC Psychol. 2024 Dec 20;12(1):767. doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-02066-0.

Abstract

Background: The adoption of healthy self-care practices has proven necessary for professional life, as they often serve as a shield against stressors in the workplace. The COVID-19 pandemic created a high strain on general practitioners (GPs), contributing to increased workload, burnout, and anxiety. The present study aimed to identify self-care practices adopted by GPs amid the COVID-19 pandemic; and to explore the relationships between self-care practices and risk of distress.

Methods: The current study utilized an online questionnaire arriving from the PRICOV-19 study, which was distributed among GP practices across 38 countries. The main focus was on the open-text responses where participants disclosed self-care practices employed to maintain mental health during COVID-19. The Six Domains of Self-Care theoretical framework was applied to investigate GP self-care practices across 6 domains including Physical, Professional, Relational, Emotional, Psychological, and Spiritual. The Mayo Clinic Well-Being Index (eWBI) was applied to assess mental well-being and risk of distress among GPs. The analysis was carried out using SPSS Statistics software.

Results: In total, 2,949 GPs provided open-text responses on maintaining their mental health. 65.5% of GPs had an eWBI score of ≥ 2 and were considered at risk of distress. The majority of the participants prioritised physical (61.7%), followed by relational (38.0%) and psychological (34.6%) self-care practices to maintain their mental health during the pandemic. GPs who applied relational, physical, and professional self-care were significantly less likely to experience depression, stress, and emotional exhaustion, in comparison with the ones who did not apply these practices. GPs who practiced professional self-care practices had the lowest distress risk (eWBI = 1.99). Overall, 5% of GPs disclosed not applying any practices to maintain their mental health during the pandemic and were the most prone to mental health distress.

Conclusions: GPs have navigated the pandemic uniquely, and despite applying self-care practices they faced some level of impact, hence self-care interventions for healthcare professionals should be regarded as essential rather than optional. A long-term investment in strategies focused on improving GPs' self-care is necessary to increase resilience among GPs and ensure their optimal well-being levels are achieved.

Keywords: COVID-19; General practitioners; Self-care; Wellbeing.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Anxiety / epidemiology
  • Anxiety / psychology
  • Burnout, Professional / epidemiology
  • Burnout, Professional / psychology
  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • COVID-19* / psychology
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Female
  • General Practitioners* / psychology
  • General Practitioners* / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mental Health / statistics & numerical data
  • Middle Aged
  • Pandemics
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Self Care* / psychology
  • Self Care* / statistics & numerical data
  • Surveys and Questionnaires