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European Journal of Psychotraumatology logoLink to European Journal of Psychotraumatology
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. 2021 Oct 12;12(1):1968141. doi: 10.1080/20008198.2021.1968141

Helping patients connect remotely with their loved ones modulates distress in healthcare workers: tend-and-befriend hypothesis for COVID-19 front liners

Ayudando a los pacientes a conectarse en forma remota con sus seres queridos modula el estrés en trabajadores de la salud: Una hipótesis de ‘cuidar y hacer amigos’ para trabajadores en primera línea del COVID-19

帮助患者与亲人远程联系可调节医护人员的痛苦:针对 COVID-19 一线人员的照料与结盟假设

Edita Fino a,✉, Viola Fino b, Ismaela Bonfrate c, Paolo Maria Russo a, Michela Mazzetti a
PMCID: PMC8519556  PMID: 34659653

ABSTRACT

The no-visitor policies endorsed by healthcare organizations to limit COVID-19 virus risk exposure have unfortunately contributed to the isolation of patients further exacerbating distress in relatives and frontline healthcare workers. To contrast such effects, many healthcare institutions have adopted technology-based solutions helping patients and families communicate online through the aid of virtual devices. To date, no study has investigated whether facilitating patient-family videocalls would mitigate distress levels in frontline healthcare professionals. Caring for emotional needs of patients by re-establishing affiliative connections interrupted by the pandemic through patient-family videocalls is expected to mitigate distress in engaged healthcare workers as an example of a tend-and-befriend response to stress caused by the pandemic. We tested this hypothesis in a cross-sectional study conducted during 1–30 June 2020, involving 209 healthcare workers (nurses = 146; physicians = 63) engaged in the COVID-19 frontline in Italy. Half of participants in our sample (n = 107) had assisted efforts aimed at connecting patients remotely with families through videocalls. Psychological distress measures included symptoms of burnout, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and difficulty in sleep and wakefulness. Partially in line with our expectations we found a modulation effect specific for professional category: nurses assisting patient-family videocalls reported significantly lower levels of distress and a better quality of wakefulness compared to those who did not, whereas physicians reported higher levels of distress during such virtual communications. We interpret these findings from the perspective of patient-family communication and differences in skills and training between nurses and physicians. These findings highlight that technology-based solutions aimed at reducing barriers and alleviating distress in healthcare settings should be promoted in concert with skill enhancement training for healthcare professionals especially in terms of communicating online and communicating difficult topics with patients and families.

KEYWORDS: COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare worker distress, tend-and-befriend stress response, patient-family online communication

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Tending to patients’ emotional needs by facilitating virtual communication with families mitigates distress in COVID-19 front-line nurses.

  • The inverse effect was observed among physicians who reported enhanced distress putatively due to gaps in communication skills and training.

Dear Editor,

Aimed to limit risks to COVID-19 virus exposure, the no-visitor policies endorsed by healthcare organizations have unfortunately disrupted essential affiliative links, contributing to the isolation of COVID-19 patients (Bo et al., 2020) and further exacerbating distress in relatives (Ingravallo, 2020) and healthcare workers (Rose, Cook, Casey, & Meyer, 2020). Family absence from intensive care units uniquely frustrates the basic need of patients to receive comforting support from significant others when sick and dying (Taylor, 2012) while posing barriers to the flow of updates to relatives on their loved one’s condition. This contributes significantly to the distress of frontline healthcare workers (HCWs) who witness patients deteriorate and die without their loved ones present and are also required to handle difficult conversations with families (Bowman, Esch, Back, & Marshall, 2020; Rabow, Huang, White-Hammond, & Tucker, 2021).

In such unprecedented times, alleviating human suffering through tending to patients’ emotional needs is paramount, and maintaining connections with families through the aid of digital devices has been recommended as a way of mitigating distress caused by pandemic-related restriction measures (Fino, Fino, Mazzetti, & Russo, 2020; Negro et al., 2020). Efforts in Italian healthcare facilities, as in other parts of the world, have concentrated on facilitating videocalls and ‘virtual family visits’ (Negro et al., 2020; Rose et al., 2020). Enabling virtual contact with families whenever possible is believed to benefit isolated patients who need to receive emotional support from families during hospitalization, while enhancing family engagement in intensive care and likely contributing to downregulating distress levels in engaged HCWs. Also known as the tend-and-befriend response to stress (Taylor, 2012), caring for emotional needs of patients by re-establishing affiliative connections interrupted by the pandemic are heart-warming examples of a patient-centred care in the emergency context and may crucially modulate the stress response of HCWs. To date, no study has investigated whether facilitating virtual patient-family communications would mitigate distress levels in engaged healthcare professionals.

We tested this hypothesis in a cross-sectional study conducted from 1 to 30 June 2020, including 209 healthcare workers (female = 162) deployed in COVID-19 facilities located in worst-hit regions of Italy. Respondents completed an online questionnaire probing on socio-demographic and work-related variables (i.e. professional category, seniority and having facilitated virtual patient-family communications via tablet, smartphone during service). Our sample was composed of nurses (n = 146) and physicians (n = 63) and 50% of participants (n = 107) had assisted efforts aimed at connecting patients remotely with families through videocalls.

Psychological distress measures included symptoms of burnout, measured with the 21-item Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI, Maslach & Jackson, 1981), post-traumatic stress measured with the 20-item PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5, Weathers et al., 2013), anxiety and depression, measured with the 14-item Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS, Zigmond & Snaith, 1983) and difficulty in sleep and wakefulness assessed with the 10-item Mini Sleep Questionnaire (MSQ, Natale, Fabbri, Tonetti, & Martoni, 2014). IRB approval was granted from Bologna University (No.16560) and all participants provided informed consent.

To characterize the sample and assess group differences, we performed descriptive statistics and ANOVAs using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, with significance level set at p < .05. Dependent variables were symptoms of burnout, PTSD, anxiety, depression and difficulty in sleep and wakefulness. Independent variables were professional category (nurse, physician) and assisting videocalls (VC) with families, controlling for sex, age, and seniority.

Female HCWs reported significantly higher levels of post-traumatic stress (F1,208 = 4.85, p = .029, η2 = 0.023), anxiety (F1,208 = 7.45, p = .007, η2 = 0.035) and more difficulty in wakefulness (F1,208 = 4.32, p = .039, η2 = 0.021) compared to males. Furthermore, nurse professionals scored higher on the burnout subscale of depersonalization compared to physicians (F1,208 = 4.64, p = .032, η2 = 0.022) (See Supplementary Table 1). Compared to younger HCWs, the more senior professionals reported significantly lower levels of anxiety (F1,208 = 5.31, p = .022, η2 = 0.026).

Relevant to our study hypothesis, a significant interaction effect emerged between professional category and facilitation of videocalls with families for all dependent measures (all ps < 0.05) except the burnout subscale of personal achievement (p = .313). Partially in line with our expectations, pairwise comparisons (Bonferroni corrected) showed that nurses facilitating patient-family communications reported significantly lower levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, PTSD, anxiety and of wakefulness difficulty compared to nurses who did not. Instead, higher scores on emotional exhaustion, PTSD and anxiety were reported by physicians assisting videocalls (see Figure 1 and Supplementary Table 1).

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Graphs display mean scores on symptoms of burnout subscales (i.e., of Exhaustion, Depersonalization, Achievement), post-traumatic stress (PTSD), Anxiety, Depression and difficulties in Sleep and Wakefulness, in (a) nurses and (b) physicians assisting patient-family video calls (VCs) compared to those that didn’t. Statistically significant differences are indicated by asterisks (*p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01)

Our results indicate a modulation effect specific for professional category and our hypothesis was confirmed only for nurse professionals who reported significantly lower levels of distress and of difficulty in wakefulness when assisting patient-family videocalls. The finding that physicians engaged in such virtual encounters reported higher levels of distress was somehow unexpected, but it can be interpreted from the perspective of patient-family communication. Nurses are likely more versed than physicians in such skills, given their training and the more extensive contact with patients and families, which may explain why physicians facilitating online patient-family communications seem to feel more ill at ease during such conversations. Although further research on this issue is warranted, our study is the first to suggest that tending to emotional needs of patients by re-establishing affiliative connections interrupted by the pandemic may benefit the wellbeing of engaged nurses who are reportedly the most burdened of all healthcare front-liners (García-Fernández et al., 2020; Lai et al., 2020). Our findings also support the until now anecdotal evidence about frontline clinicians experiencing distress during online communication with families (Bowman et al., 2020; Collini, Parker, & Oliver, 2020) and highlight the need for frontline professionals to receive tailored support and guidance tools in communicating with families and patients during such unprecedented times.

Sustaining the psychological wellbeing of frontline healthcare workers as they continue to provide the best patient-centred care is crucial in an emergency context (Fino et al., 2021). Technology-based tools and solutions in healthcare settings appear to be quite promising in terms of reducing barriers and alleviating distress (Colombini, Duradoni, Carpi, Vagnoli, & Guazzini, 2021) which are especially exacerbated by pandemic related measures. While virtual communication technologies facilitating remote interactions between HCWs, patients and family will likely be in the rise in healthcare organizations beyond the current pandemic, it is crucial that they be complemented by skill enhancement training for healthcare professionals especially in terms of communicating online and communicating difficult topics with patients and families.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental Material
Click here for additional data file. (25.8KB, docx)

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all frontline healthcare workers in our healthcare system who continue to be dedicated to delivering the highest quality care for all patients and families.

Funding Statement

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The dataset supporting this work can be consulted at https://amsacta.unibo.it/

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Supplementary Materials

Supplemental Material
Click here for additional data file. (25.8KB, docx)

Data Availability Statement

The dataset supporting this work can be consulted at https://amsacta.unibo.it/

Articles from European Journal of Psychotraumatology are provided here courtesy of Taylor & Francis

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