J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  2023 Oct;34(5):437-452.

Comparison of work stress, depression, insomnia, and fatigue of emergency department medical staff according to the emergency medical institutions and general characteristics during COVID-19 epidemic

• Yang SH
• Kim JH
• Kim DW
• Lee TH
• Seo JY
• Ahn ME

Abstract

Objective
The objective of this study was to investigate job stress, depression, insomnia, and fatigue of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) medical staff and analyze the differences according to their general characteristics.
Methods
The study enrolled 98 workers at emergency medical institutions with COVID-19 treatment facilities located in Gangwon Province. An online survey was used to protect personal information. Data were analyzed using the statistical program SPSS version 28. The differences in job stress, depression, insomnia, and fatigue of COVID-19 medical staff were verified by t-test and analysis of variance.
Results
Analyzing job stress revealed that the average of the lowest relationship conflict stress for each sub-factor was 2.22, the average stress for job demand was the highest at 3.78, and the average whole job stress was 3.04. Contrarily, the average for depression was 1.69, insomnia 2.96, and fatigue 3.07. No statistically significant differences were observed for job stress, depression, insomnia, and fatigue when considering the type of workplace, gender, and occupation of COVID-19 medical staff. However, statistically significant differences were obtained in some variables including age, family members, working period, COVID-19 confirmed, and COVID-19-related education experience.
Conclusion
In this study, differences in job-related stress, depression, insomnia, and fatigue were confirmed considering the general characteristics of COVID-19 medical staff. In particular, the results of this study are significant since the difference in perceived stress in performing COVID-19 tasks was identified through empirical analysis by considering sub-factors of job stress.

Keyword

COVID-19; Medical staff; Occupational stress; Depression; Disorders of initiating and maintaining sleep; Fatigue