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Abstract Introduction Health care workers (HCW) may respond to individual, national, and even international crises. This might influence their professional quality of life. The aim of this study was to evaluate the professional quality of life of HCW in a tertiary hospital in Monastir Tunisia and to assess its determinants. Methods a cross-sectional study conducted in December 2022 using an online survey. We used the professional quality of life scale, which evaluates compassion satisfaction (CS), secondary traumatic stress (STS) and Burnout (BO). Results 230 HCW responded to the survey. Moderate to high levels of CS, BO and STS were noted in 94.11%, 80.71% and 62.38% of the participants respectively. The emergency department was the most concerned with BO (92.3%) and STS (85.7%). Determinants of BO were depression (OR= 3.09; CI95% 1.15-8.29) and having any medical history (OR= 7.1; CI95% 1.5-33.8) while high levels of CS were a protective factor (OR= 0.27; CI95% 0.12-0.58). Presenting symptoms of anxiety multiplied the risk of STS three times (OR= 3.5; CI95% 1.8-6.5). Discussion this study shows the poor professional quality of life of HCW. This might affect not only their wellbeing, but also their efficiency and patient’s security. These results prompted us to set up multidisciplinary working groups in order to determine risk factors of poor quality of life and design specific strategies to enhance HCW’s quality of life. Conclusion Occupational physicians should focus on establishing programs that foster skills like self-efficacy, coping strategies and resilience in HCW. Future studies to evaluate the effectiveness of our strategy are needed.
Machghoul et al. (Mon,) studied this question.