The influence of workload during the COVID-19 pandemic on the social life of the nurses

Abstract

Background: Nurses have been the frontline fighters during the COVID-19 pandemic. This challenge has placed nurses under tremendous workload pressure, which has, in turn, affected many aspects of their lives. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia, many hospitals and healthcare systems have been adversely affected. However, few studies have examined the impact of workload during the COVID-19 pandemic on nurses’ social lives.

Objective: This study aimed to examine the relationship between the workload during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the social life of nurses.

Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional design was employed in this study. An online questionnaire was used for data collection between April and May 2021 among 204 nurses. The frequencies, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were computed to describe the results. In addition, the Chi-squared test was conducted to test the relationships among variables.

Results: There were 73.53% female and 26.47% male respondents with a mean age of 27.64 ± 10.62 years, and the majority of the participants were Saudi (87.25%) and single (52.45%). The mean score of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and work pressure on nurses’ social lives was 7.31 ± 1.84 out of 10. There was a significant relationship between workload during the COVID-19 pandemic and the social life of nurses (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: The study revealed how the workload in the hospital during the pandemic period affected the healthcare workers’ social lives, especially nurses. Therefore, it is necessary to support nurses and know their needs during the pandemic, which may reduce their workload to improve their work/life balance and performance. The other lessons learned from the pandemic are that the hospitals should focus more on providing a training program for nurses on a crisis preparedness plan and positive coping techniques.