Compassion fatigue, work engagement, and psychological distress in health care workers treating patients with long COVID

Background: Health care workers (HCWs) caring for patients with chronic disease are more likely to experience compassion fatigue. The impacts on HCWs caring for patients with a new complex chronic disease, long COVID, are unknown. Objective: To measure compassion fatigue, work engagement, and psychological distress in HCWs caring for patients with long COVID and investigate associations with personal history of long COVID and demographic and occupational characteristics. Design: Cross-sectional survey study assessing demographic and occupational characteristics, Compassion Fatigue-Short Scale (CF-SS), Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-3 (UWES-3), and Screening Tool for Psychological Distress (STOP-D) in HCWs caring for patients with long COVID. Setting: Online survey from March–June 2023. Participants: 116 HCWs caring for patients with long COVID. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: CF-SS, UWES-3, and STOP-D scores and associations with personal history of long COVID, demographic and occupational factors. Results: HCWs with a personal history of long COVID had worse scores in all outcome measures compared to those without long COVID. Effects were moderate (UWES-3: η² = −0.09, p =.01; STOP-D: η² = 0.06, p =.02; CF-SS: η² = 0.07, p =.02). Outcome measures were comparable between physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians and other HCWs (p >.05). CF-SS showed a small positive correlation (r_s = 0.19, n = 112, p =.04) with the percentage of the provider's patient population with long COVID. Mean outcome measures differed between career-level groups with medium to large effects (UWES-3: η² = 0.13, STOP-D: η² = 0.06, CF-SS: η² = 0.06). Work engagement was worse in early career compared to late career (p <.01). Psychological distress was worse in middle career compared to late career (p =.02). Compassion fatigue was worse in early career compared to late career (p =.02). Conclusions: Among HCWs caring for patients with long COVID, mean scores for all primary outcomes were worse in HCWs with a personal history of long COVID compared to those without. Early career HCWs caring for this population are less engaged and experience greater compassion fatigue whereas those in middle career experience greater psychological distress.