Strategies for coping with stress used by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

Introduction and objective: The subject of the article are the strategies used by nurses working in COVID-19 hospital units for coping with stress. The aim of the study was to make a comparative analysis between the styles, strategies and behaviours practiced by nurses working in COVID units and the nurses working in conservative treatment and surgical units.

Material and methods: For the study we used the Polish adaptation of Ch. S. Carver's standardized "Inventory for Measuring Coping with Stress Mini-COPE" (Brief-COPE), created by Z. Juczyński and N. Ogińska-Bulik. The research was carried out in 2021 on a group of 225 nurses working in different hospital units.

Results: The results showed that in the COVID-19 units, avoidance and humor were used as coping strat-egies significantly more often than in the surgical and conservative treatments units. The observed strategies included planning, positive revaluation, use of psychoactive substances, preoccupation with other activities, denial, emotional discharge, and humor. Factors such as age, sex, marital status, education or place of residence turned out to have an influence on the ways of coping practiced by particular nurses.

Conclusions: There is a clear distinction between the strategies, styles and behaviours observed among nurses working in COVID-19 units, and the ways of coping practiced by nurses working in non-COVID-19 units (conservative treatment and surgical). Nurses working in COVID-19 units were more likely to deny facts, distract themselves with different activities, or downplay the seriousness of the situation by joking and treating the situation with fun and humor, but also to use planning and positive reevaluation to cope with stress.