Psychosocial risk in healthcare workers after one year of COVID-19.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed the capacity of the healthcare system, affecting the volume of demands and the care tasks of healthcare workers.

Aims: To examine the health indicators and exposure to psychosocial risks of Spanish healthcare workers 1 year into the COVID-19 pandemic and compare them with the results of the first wave.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire (April-May 2020 and 2021). The data stem from the COTS 1 project database, corresponding to the first wave of COVID-19 (n = 1989) and COTS 2 (n = 1716) corresponding to 1 year later. The samples were independent. The prevalence of exposure to psychosocial risks and adverse health indicators was estimated for every occupational group, segregating the data by sex.

Results: Professionals of all types presented worse perception of health. In general, the results were worse for women, while geriatric assistants presented the greatest exposure to psychosocial risk in COTS 2 compared to COTS 1. Sleep problems, high quantitative demands and high concern about becoming infected and spreading COVID-19 were cross-disciplinary in COTS 1, while worse perception of health, high pace of work, high work-life conflict and low development opportunities stood out in COTS 2.

Conclusions: Exposure to psychosocial risks was already high during the first wave and a significant decline in working conditions was observed. The prolongation of the pandemic exacerbated these results and seems to have multiplied the pre-existing inequalities between the axes of segregation in the labour market.