ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1514330
Post-Traumatic Stress Status Among Emergency Department Nurses during the Winter H1N1 Influenza Season and Correlations with Burnout, Coping, Resilience, and Support
Provisionally accepted
- Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center Emergency Department, Shanghai, China
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Objective: This study aims to investigate the status of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among emergency department nurses in multiple tertiary hospitals in Shanghai, China during the winter H1N1 influenza season and analyze its influencing factors. Methods: A cross - sectional study design was adopted from October 2023 to December 2023. A total of 116 emergency department nurses from multiple tertiary hospitals in Shanghai were selected as research subjects using cluster sampling during the peak period of winter H1N1 influenza. The Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), and Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) were used for data collection. PTSD was defined as IES-R score ≥ 35, and participants were grouped as PTSD positive or negative. The relationship between PTSD and occupational burnout, coping styles, psychological resilience, and social support was analyzed.Results: Among the 116 participants, the rate of PTSD positivity was 44.86% (48/107). The MBI scores in all dimensions were significantly higher in the PTSD positive group compared to the PTSD negative group. The positive coping scores in the SCSQ were lower in the positive group, while the negative coping scores were higher. The CD-RISC scores in all dimensions were significantly lower in the PTSD positive group, as were the SSRS scores in all dimensions. Higher emotional exhaustion was significantly associated with increased odds of PTSD (OR = 1.16), indicating that for each one-point increase in emotional exhaustion, the odds of PTSD increased by 16%. Greater reliance on negative coping strategies was also independently associated with PTSD (OR = 1.23). In contrast, higher levels of optimism (a resilience factor) and greater subjective social support were protective, significantly lowering the odds of PTSD (OR = 0.76 and OR = 0.70, respectively). Conclusion: The occurrence of PTSD among emergency department nurses during the winter H1N1 influenza season is considerable and closely related to occupational burnout, psychological resilience, coping styles, and social support. These findings highlight the urgent need for attention to this issue.
Keywords: Emergency department nurses, Post-traumatic stress disorder, Occupational burnout, psychological resilience, Coping styles, social support
Received: 20 Oct 2024; Accepted: 20 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shen, Wang, Shi, Chai, Zhou and Zheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zheping Zheng, Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center Emergency Department, Shanghai, China
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