Acute Stress among Nurses in Sweden during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Palmborg, Åsa ; Lötvall, Rebecka and Cardeña, Etzel LU
(2022)
In European Journal of Trauma and Dissociation
6(3).
- Abstract
Sweden was hit hard in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic with deaths per capita among the highest in Europe. The pandemic was a stressful time especially for healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients. Various studies have evaluated whether nurses caring for these patients had higher levels of acute stress, but typically with measures that either used older DSM-IV criteria for Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) or general measures of acute stress. We recruited an online sample (N = 101) of nurses in Sweden from COVID-19 specialized units (ICU), Emergency (ER), and other units (Other), and asked them to answer questionnaires retrospectively to the peak of infections in Sweden. We aimed to evaluate: 1) the psychometric properties of... (More)
Sweden was hit hard in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic with deaths per capita among the highest in Europe. The pandemic was a stressful time especially for healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients. Various studies have evaluated whether nurses caring for these patients had higher levels of acute stress, but typically with measures that either used older DSM-IV criteria for Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) or general measures of acute stress. We recruited an online sample (N = 101) of nurses in Sweden from COVID-19 specialized units (ICU), Emergency (ER), and other units (Other), and asked them to answer questionnaires retrospectively to the peak of infections in Sweden. We aimed to evaluate: 1) the psychometric properties of the translation of the Stanford Acute Stress Reaction Questionnaire-II (SASRQ-II, which follows DSM-5 criteria for ASD) into Swedish, 2) whether nurses in COVID-19 units had experienced more acute stress than nurses in other units, and 3) the extent of potential acute stress disorder. The SASRQ-II evidenced good construct, convergent and divergent validity, and good reliability. It showed that ICU nurses reported significantly more acute stress than the other two groups, a difference that could not be accounted for by demographic or other variables. A retrospective diagnosis of ASD using the SASRQ-II suggested that 60% of nurses might have fulfilled ASD criteria, but no differences across groups were found.
(Less)
- author
- Palmborg, Åsa
; Lötvall, Rebecka
and Cardeña, Etzel
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022-09-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Acute stress, Acute stress disorder, COVID-19, Healthcare workers, Nurses
- in
- European Journal of Trauma and Dissociation
- volume
- 6
- issue
- 3
- article number
- 100283
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85131691574
- pmid:37521718
- ISSN
- 2468-7499
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.ejtd.2022.100283
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
- id
- 5ac045fb-7331-44bb-9b7f-9c5ac4f2c63b
- date added to LUP
- 2022-09-02 08:57:58
- date last changed
- 2025-03-20 23:31:57
@article{5ac045fb-7331-44bb-9b7f-9c5ac4f2c63b,
abstract = {{<p>Sweden was hit hard in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic with deaths per capita among the highest in Europe. The pandemic was a stressful time especially for healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients. Various studies have evaluated whether nurses caring for these patients had higher levels of acute stress, but typically with measures that either used older DSM-IV criteria for Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) or general measures of acute stress. We recruited an online sample (N = 101) of nurses in Sweden from COVID-19 specialized units (ICU), Emergency (ER), and other units (Other), and asked them to answer questionnaires retrospectively to the peak of infections in Sweden. We aimed to evaluate: 1) the psychometric properties of the translation of the Stanford Acute Stress Reaction Questionnaire-II (SASRQ-II, which follows DSM-5 criteria for ASD) into Swedish, 2) whether nurses in COVID-19 units had experienced more acute stress than nurses in other units, and 3) the extent of potential acute stress disorder. The SASRQ-II evidenced good construct, convergent and divergent validity, and good reliability. It showed that ICU nurses reported significantly more acute stress than the other two groups, a difference that could not be accounted for by demographic or other variables. A retrospective diagnosis of ASD using the SASRQ-II suggested that 60% of nurses might have fulfilled ASD criteria, but no differences across groups were found.</p>}},
author = {{Palmborg, Åsa and Lötvall, Rebecka and Cardeña, Etzel}},
issn = {{2468-7499}},
keywords = {{Acute stress; Acute stress disorder; COVID-19; Healthcare workers; Nurses}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{09}},
number = {{3}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{European Journal of Trauma and Dissociation}},
title = {{Acute Stress among Nurses in Sweden during the COVID-19 Pandemic}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejtd.2022.100283}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.ejtd.2022.100283}},
volume = {{6}},
year = {{2022}},
}