P-427 Job Strain in Healthcare Workers During the Covid Pandemic First Wave: Prevalence and Associated Factors

Introduction Working in front line during the first wave of COVID pandemic, healthcare workers suffered from an increase in their work demand, resulting in intensifying job strain. Our aim was, therefore, to study the prevalence of job strain and its associated factors among healthcare workers. Methods This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study conducted over the period of June to November 2020, among healthcare professionals at the University Hospital in Monastir. Job strain was measured using the Karasek questionnaire in its validated French version. Data were collected using an anonymous questionnaire. Results Of the 305 participants in the study, 79% had job strain, of which 12.8% were in iso-strain. Medical practitioners were more prone to job strain (p= 0.014; OR= 2.47; IC95%: [1.18-4.66]). While having an age between 20 and 30 was proved to be a protective factor against job strain (p= 0.007; OR= 0.561; IC95%: [0.36-0.85]), a change in eating habits was found to be an increasing risk factor (p= 0,003; OR= 2.397; IC95%: [1.34-4.26]). Discussion The prevalence of job strain can be explained by the nature of healthcare work, which requires a high level of intellectual, emotional, and physical mobilization. It was made worse by the shortage of material and inadequate protective equipment. Nevertheless, younger healthcare workers with healthy eating-habits were more able to manage COVID job strain. Conclusion Our results suggest for future organizational preventive measures of workload in sanitary crisis, to lay on younger workers in frontlines and to assure healthy lifestyle habits for them.