Impacts on mental well-being
Doing all this extra work for every patient amounted to many hours of extra work. This workload, coupled with pressure to protect themselves and their families, put strain on personal relationships and sometimes led to a downturn in their mental and emotional well-being, particularly during the initial 2020 lockdown.
When we interviewed community healthcare workers, many described feeling they had to enhance their work duties to be seen as “good carers” or “heroes”, particularly during lockdowns.
Caring for their patients in the community involved caring and worrying about patients and their families during the pandemic. This also had a negative impact on the carers’ families and social lives as well as their mental health.
Despite vigilant monitoring of their personal protective equipment (PPE), the need to safeguard family and community members generated considerable stress and anxiety. Many carers also faced personal isolation and loneliness as a result of lockdown restrictions.
Improving work conditions
Improvements for community-based healthcare workers must focus on addressing the consequences of increased responsibilities and complexity of the work during a pandemic and recognising that such work often takes place in profound isolation, professionally and personally. Professional and public recognition would go some way to reducing associated stress and anxiety.
We found the negative impacts of experiences during lockdowns often continued once restrictions had been lifted and we make several key recommendations for supporting community-based nurses, and home and community care assistants during respiratory disease pandemics.
First, we must acknowledge the crucial role they play and the stress and anxiety they endure. But at the same time we must demystify the heroism and self-sacrifice projected onto care workers.
Other improvements include the timely provision of adequate protective equipment, better remuneration and provision for time off, regular counselling, peer support groups and support with maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
Such measures must extend well beyond lockdowns because the psychological and social effects of stringent pandemic control measures can be long-lasting. While especially valuable during and after a pandemic, these measures should be considered best practice for supporting community healthcare workers at all times.
Above all, it is vital to recognise the specific contributions made by community healthcare professionals during pandemics. Rather than collapsing them into an undifferentiated category of “essential” workers, we must acknowledge these distinct contributions and anticipate them in future pandemic planning.
