Perceived Social Support and Professional Quality of Life of Health Professionals During COVID-19 Pandemic in Nepal: a Cross-sectional Study

Overview

Journal BMJ Open

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2024 May 28

PMID 38803250

Authors

Bikram Kumar Singh

Samip Pandey

Urja Humagain

Pariwesh Raj Bista

Durga Prasad Pahari

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: To assess the perceived social support and professional quality of life (ProQOL) among healthcare professionals during COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal, encompassing both positive (compassion satisfaction) and negative (compassion fatigue) dimensions as well as the factors associated with them.

Design: A cross-sectional web-based study.

Setting: Nepal PARTICIPANTS: We carried out a convenience sampling technique to enrol 313 health professionals aged 18-60 years old.

Outcome Measures: We employed the ProQOL V.5 questionnaire (comparing 30 self-report items) and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support with 12 items to assess the ProQOL and social support, respectively. A χ test was performed to determine associated factors of different dimensions of ProQOL.

Results: The study included a total of 313 participants, mostly consisting of frontline health workers. More than one-third of the participants worked in places where precautionary measures were insufficient. However, the majority of them (73.8%) had high social support. Concerning the ProQOL, the percentage of health professionals that had moderate compassion satisfaction (CS), moderate Burnout (BO) and moderate secondary traumatic stress (STS) were 57.5%, 58.2% and 75.4%, respectively. Factors like sex, marital status, profession, work-shift, type of health institution and status of precautionary measures at the workplace were associated with the different dimensions of ProQOL at the significance level of 0.05.

Conclusion: This study findings revealed a considerable proportion of BO and STS among health professionals during COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal. Implementation of appropriate interventions and support systems are needed to enhance CS, alleviate BO and mitigate STS among health professionals to combat future health emergencies.

Citing Articles

Burnout and Professional Quality of Life Assessment in Portuguese Healthcare Professionals Working in Oncology and Palliative Care: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Goncalves F, Gaudencio M, Paiva I, Branco M, Viana J Healthcare (Basel). 2025; 13(1.

PMID: 39791633 PMC: 11719651. DOI: 10.3390/healthcare13010026.

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