Self-Care and Posttraumatic Growth in Pandemic-Era Psychologists

Abstract

Psychologists who provided care during the COVID-19 global pandemic were in the unique position of being subjected to a widespread traumatic event whilst also providing psychological services to clients who were undergoing the same collective experience. The COVID-19 global pandemic had widespread effects on the general population as well as those in the health care and related fields. This study attempted to identify any significant relationships between the variables of perceived stress, COVID-19 stress, secondary traumatic stress (STS), self-care, and posttraumatic growth (PTG) in licensed psychologists who practiced patient care at any time during the pandemic period between January 31, 2020 and March 11, 2023. A survey was administered to 124 psychologists electronically and collected demographic information as well as scores on measures of perceived stress (via the perceived stress scale), STS, COVID-19 stress (via the COVID- 19 Stress Scales), self-care, and PTG (via the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory). It was found that COVID-19 stress significantly predicted PTG (? = .823, p < .001) but PTG was not significantly predicted by perceived stress (? = .058, p < .732) or STS (? = .212, p = .134). It was found that COVID-19 stress did not significantly predict PTG moderated by self-care (? = .120, t = .469, p = .640). PTG was not statistically predicted by perceived stress moderated by self-care (? = .253, t = 1.113, p = .269) nor did self-care significantly moderate the relationship between STS and PTG (? = .166, t = .596, p = .553). Correlation analysis indicated no significant relationship between PTG and self-care, r(78) = .05, p = .657.