COVID exacted a huge toll on the well-being of health care workers, a new survey shows.
Already struggling with high levels of emotional exhaustion going into the pandemic, the problem grew even worse after two years of managing the crisis. Nurses have been especially hard hit.
Researchers conducted surveys over three years with more than 30,000 health care workers—including doctors, nurses, clinical social workers, administrators, and others—to track the emotional impact of the pandemic.
Their findings are published in JAMA Network Open.
Across all roles, the researchers found increases in emotional exhaustion—a way of measuring burnout and well-being—from 32% in 2019, before COVID hit, to 40% by January 2022….