Sense of coherence, social support and religiosity as resources for medical personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic: A web-based survey among 4324 health care workers within the German Network University Medicine

PLoS One. 2021 Jul 26;16(7):e0255211. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255211. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in severe detrimental effects on the mental well-being of health care workers (HCW). Consequently, there has been a need to identify health-promoting resources in order to mitigate the psychological impact of the pandemic on HCW.

Objective: Our objective was to investigate the association of sense of coherence (SOC), social support and religiosity with self-reported mental symptoms and increase of subjective burden during the COVID-19 pandemic in HCW.

Methods: Our sample comprised 4324 HCW of four professions (physicians, nurses, medical technical assistants (MTA) and pastoral workers) who completed an online survey from 20 April to 5 July 2020. Health-promoting resources were assessed using the Sense of Coherence Scale Short Form (SOC-3), the ENRICHD Social Support Inventory (ESSI) and one item on religiosity derived from the Scale of Transpersonal Trust (TPV). Anxiety and depression symptoms were measured with the PHQ-2 and GAD-2. The increase of subjective burden due to the pandemic was assessed as the retrospective difference between burden during the pandemic and before the pandemic.

Results: In multiple regressions, higher SOC was strongly associated with fewer anxiety and depression symptoms. Higher social support was also related to less severe mental symptoms, but with a smaller effect size, while religiosity showed minimal to no correlation with anxiety or depression. In professional group analysis, SOC was negatively associated with mental symptoms in all groups, while social support only correlated significantly with mental health outcomes in physicians and MTA. In the total sample and among subgroups, an increase of subjective burden was meaningfully associated only with a weaker SOC.

Conclusion: Perceived social support and especially higher SOC appeared to be beneficial for mental health of HCW during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the different importance of the resources in the respective occupations requires further research to identify possible reasons.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Anxiety / epidemiology
  • Anxiety / psychology*
  • COVID-19 / epidemiology
  • COVID-19 / psychology*
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Depression / epidemiology
  • Depression / psychology*
  • Female
  • Germany / epidemiology
  • Health Personnel
  • Health Promotion / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Logistic Models
  • Male
  • Mental Health
  • Middle Aged
  • Pandemics*
  • Religion
  • SARS-CoV-2 / pathogenicity
  • Sense of Coherence*
  • Social Support*
  • Stress, Psychological / epidemiology*
  • Stress, Psychological / physiopathology
  • Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

The study was designed and set up within the research group “Resilience in Religion and Spirituality”, speaker Prof. Dr. Cornelia Richter, financially supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – project number 348851031. Data management and evaluation were performed in the collaborative research project egePan Unimed which is financially supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the Network University Medicine (NUM) (funding code: 01KX2021) and led by Prof. Dr. Michael Albrecht, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Graf, Prof. Dr. Jochen Schmitt and Dr. Michael von Wagner. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The corresponding author had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.