COVID-19, anxiety, and hopelessness: quality of life among healthcare workers in Turkey
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Abstract
The aim of the study is to investigate the effects of intense anxiety and hopelessness experienced by healthcare workers during the pandemic on their quality of life. This cross-sectional, online questionnaire-based study was conducted between August 31, 2020 and October 31, 2020, with 729 healthcare workers in Turkey. The study showed that hopelessness, the weekly working time, fatigue, and the workload of healthcare workers negatively affected their quality of life, those who found the pandemic measures inadequate had a lower quality of life and higher hopelessness levels, and those who needed knowledge on various issues to improve their skills had lower quality of life and higher levels of anxiety and hopelessness. Increasing the measures to make healthcare workers feel competent and ready during the COVID-19 pandemic and meet their information needs to improve their skills will reduce their anxiety and hopelessness and improve their quality of life. Identifying the factors affecting anxiety, hopelessness, and quality of life will help achieve sustainable success in the delivery of health services and promote employee health and safety.
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Workers experiencing high levels of burnout were more likely to feel hopeless.
“Research indicates that workers experiencing high levels of burnout were more likely to feel hopeless”
From Evolution of burnout syndrome in Spanish healthcare professionals during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: psychosocial variables involved (2025) · cites this paper as [17]
The Discussion (page unavailable) mentions burnout and hopelessness together when describing other studies, but does not report that workers with higher burnout were more likely to feel hopeless. A search for “burnout” found no such association in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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- Authors
- Mert, S., Peker Karatoprak, A., Demirhan, Y., Baydemir, C., Çetinarslan, B., Cantürk, Z., Selek, A., Aydin, L., Sözen, M., & Gezer, E.
- Affiliations
- Kocaeli Üniversitesi (TR)
- Kocaeli Vocational School of Health Services, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkey
- Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkey
- Corresponding author
- Mert, Selda
- ORCID
- Venue
- Evaluation & the Health Professions
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2021-12-22
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 97-107
- ISSN
- 0163-2787 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3918
- OpenAlex
- W4225901242
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 2.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Evaluation & the Health Professions (publishedVersion)
- Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Kocaeli Üniversitesi - AVESİS (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Burnout
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers, anxiety, hopelessness, quality of life, workload, fatigue, working hours, pandemic control measures, professional competence, information needs, employee health
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Anxiety, Cross-Sectional Studies, Health Personnel, Humans, Quality of Life, Turkey, Pandemics
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