The North Italian Longitudinal Study Assessing the Mental Health Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Health Care Workers—Part I: Study Design and Psychometric Structural Validity of the HSE Indicator Tool and Work Satisfaction Scale

Giovanni Veronesi, Emanuele Maria Giusti, Alessia D’Amato, Francesco Gianfagna, Rossana Borchini, Gianluca Castelnuovo, Licia Iacoviello and Marco Mario Ferrario
Additional contact information
Giovanni Veronesi: EPIMED Research Center, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Insubria, 21100 Varese, Italy
Emanuele Maria Giusti: Psychology Research Laboratory, Istituto Auxologico Italiano IRCCS, 20149 Milan, Italy
Alessia D’Amato: ASST Sette Laghi, 21100 Varese, Italy
Francesco Gianfagna: EPIMED Research Center, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Insubria, 21100 Varese, Italy
Rossana Borchini: UOS Medicina Preventiva e Legale, ASST Lariana, 22100 Como, Italy
Gianluca Castelnuovo: Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, 20123 Milan, Italy
Licia Iacoviello: EPIMED Research Center, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Insubria, 21100 Varese, Italy
Marco Mario Ferrario: EPIMED Research Center, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Insubria, 21100 Varese, Italy

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 15, 1-12

Abstract: Literature on the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on the mental health of Health Care Workers (HCWs) is mostly based on cross-sectional surveys. We designed a longitudinal study to assess work-related stress and mental health before and after the pandemic onset in a university-hospital in Lombardia region, Italy. We report on sample representativeness and structural validity of questionnaires assessing work stress (HSE Indicator Tool, HSE-IT) and work satisfaction (WS), which were not validated in the HCWs population. n = 1287 HCWs from 67 hospital wards/offices were invited to an online survey in summer 2019 (pre-COVID-19 wave) and again during winter 2020 (COVID-19 wave). Selected hospital wards/offices did not differ from the remaining wards for turn-over and down-sizing rates, overload, sick leaves, and night shifts (Wilcoxon rank tests p -values > 0.05). Participation rates were 70% (n = 805) and 60% (n = 431) in the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 waves, respectively. Socio-demographic and work-related characteristics did not impact data completeness nor participation to the COVID-19 wave. While confirming a 7-component structure for HSE-IT, we identified a new factor related to participation in work organization. A one-factor model for WS had satisfactory fit. Our longitudinal study based on a representative sample and adopting validated questionnaires is well-suited to elucidate the role of work conditions on the development of mental health disorders in HCWs.

Keywords: mental health; health care workers; HSE indicator tool; work satisfaction; principal component analysis; COVID-19; longitudinal study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/9514/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/9514/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:15:p:9514-:d:878975

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().