Dr Lee Shannon

University of Glasgow

Since the first cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) were identified in Wuhan, China in 2018, the virus has touched every corner of the globe, with almost half a billion confirmed cases leading to 6.25 million deaths as of May 2022 (Johns Hopkins, 2022). Scotland alone has registered 1.87 million cases with 12,157 confirmed deaths (Public Health Scotland, 2022). Ongoing responses to the virus have changed the working landscape for practically every profession with those in emergency response, health and social care and the volunteer sector acutely impacted by the privations of the pandemic. Research with first responders has highlighted negative mental health outcomes such as psychological trauma, post-traumatic distress disorder, burnout, emotional exhaustion, compassion fatigue, sleep disorder, panic attacks, weight loss/gain, anxiety and depression, and feelings of guilt, grief, and anger (Busch et al.,2021; Franklin and Gkiouleka, 2021; Montgomery et al, 2020) raising valid concerns about the potential for occupational risks in a plethora of frontline settings. But for staff in strategic and tactical positions, one step removed from the actual events, the picture is less well understood. This pilot study focussed on this underserved group and explored their thoughts on a diverse range of topics such as:

  • strategies for maintaining mental health
  • social relationships
  • professional identities
  • barriers to mental health and wellbeing
  • organisational responses and leadership
  • personal definitions of resilience

Participants came from a diverse range of organisations such as Local Authority Resilience and Civil Contingencies Officers, Forestry and Land, Health and Safety and the Red Cross in recognition that a bricolage of non-blue light services have contributed, and continue to contribute to, the pandemic response and recovery. Data from semi-structured interviews offers key insights the impact of the pandemic and the protective factors that enabled participants to maintain their mental health resilience over the last two years.

Context

Definition of mental health resilience

“The process of multiple biological, psychological, social, and ecological systems interacting in ways that help individuals to regain, sustain, or improve their mental wellbeing when challenged by one or more risk factors”.  (Ungar and Theron, 2020.

Overarching research question

“Which promotive and protective factors or processes are best for which people in which contexts at what level of risk exposure and for which outcomes?” (Ungar, 2019).

Findings

Participants framed the pandemic as presenting a series of evolving challenges to their mental health resilience; feelings of anger and frustration, changes in personal and professional circumstances, altered working practices, isolation and loss of social and organisational cohesion represented a threat to what Ungar (2020) has termed social-ecological resilience. The transition to new work environments was a particular challenge that altered relationships with colleagues, friends and family with some participants expressing reluctance to seek support from their employer organisations. Patterns of increased alcohol use and downward social comparison constituted coping mechanisms amongst this participant group, giving rise to concerns about strategies adopted to protect mental health.

In contrast to these findings, participants also reported personal and professional growth over the period of the pandemic with feelings of enhanced inclusion in decision making, more dynamic communication across and within organisations, the development of leadership skills and heightened sense of professional identity, serving to increase feelings of self-efficacy and bolster mental health resilience.

From these findings, the research makes a number of tentative recommendations designed to enhance approaches to mental health resilience in the organisations from which the participants are drawn, many of which are relevant to the broader resilience community.   

Read the full report here. 

Implications and Next Steps

Defining resilience: Participants primarily described mental health resilience as an individual ability/trait/faculty allowing them to adapt to disruption and accommodate to change but these definitions were further supported by social, organisational, cultural and material dimensions. This highlights the value of a holistic, place based interventions in supporting positive mental health and developing resilience.

Effects of the pandemic: Participants reported a remarkable degree of resilience where personal flexibility, effective compartmentalisation of work and family life, enhanced sense professional identity, socio-emotional leadership from management and the feeling that they played an active role in counteracting COVID-19 formed protective factors for mental health wellbeing.

Future directions: This pilot points to a number of tantalising directions for further research exploring the most effective means of enhancing known protective factors and identifying others. Resilience practitioner identity, transitioning between work environments and development of further mental health support within and beyond employment organisations are prime targets for further research.  

 

References

Busch, I. M., Moretti, F., Mazzi, M., Wu, A. W., & Rimondini, M. (2021). What we have learned from two decades of epidemics and pandemics: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the psychological burden of frontline healthcare workers. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 1-13.

Franklin, P. and Gkiouleka, A. A (2021). Scoping Review of Psychosocial Risks to Health Workers during the Covid-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Environment and Public Health, 18, 2453.

Montgomery, C., Humphreys, S., McCulloch, C. (2021) Critical care work during COVID-19: a qualitative study of staff experiences in the UK.  British Medical Journal Open, 11:e048124. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-048124

Ungar, M. (2019). Designing resilience research: using multiple methods to investigate risk exposure, promotive and protective processes, and contextually relevant outcomes for children and youth. Child Abuse and Neglect; 96: e104098.

Ungar, M. and Theron, L., 2020. Resilience and mental health: How multisystemic processes contribute to positive outcomes. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(5), pp.441-448.

 

 

 

First published: 6 July 2022

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