Anxiety, Burnout, Resilience, and Optimism during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Correlational Study of Healthcare Professionals

The COVID-19 pandemic has been detrimental for both physical and psychological well-being of frontline healthcare workers all over the world. Numerous studies report the increased prevalence rates of stress, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and burnout among healthcare professionals. Drawing from the scholarship in positive psychology, this paper investigated if the character strengths such as resilience and optimism can act as protective factors against the adverse mental health consequences such as anxiety and burnout among the frontline healthcare professionals. The aim of the study was to examine the correlation between anxiety, burnout, resilience and optimism among healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample of the study consisted of 100 healthcare professionals who worked during the COVID-19 pandemic in India and abroad. The data was collected using COVID-19 Burnout Scale, COVID-19 Anxiety Scale, Brief Resilience Scale, and Life Attitude Scale-Brief in online mode. Subsequently, Pearson’s product moment correlation was calculated to assess the correlation between the variables. The results indicated a statistically positive correlation between the COVID-19 anxiety and the COVID-19 burnout, and resilience and optimism. There was also a significant negative correlation observed between the COVID-19 anxiety and resilience, and the COVID-19 burnout and resilience. The correlation between the COVID-19 anxiety and tragic optimism and the COVID-19 burnout and the tragic optimism was not statistically significant. The study creates a strong case for introducing resilience building initiatives for mental health so that they can cope with the COVID-19 pandemic better.