Trajectories of perceived stress and resilience through the crisis and the influence of semantic representations of SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare and pastoral/spiritual care workers

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Franziska Geiser; Professor Dr. Lukas Radbruch; Professorin Dr. Cornelia Richter
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology ; Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 458628023

The SARS-Cov-2 pandemic is associated with high levels of distress for healthcare workers but research lacks longitudinal studies that prospectively record the dynamics of resilience processes and describe typical trajectories. From this, statements can be derived, e.g. on vulnerable phases or topics and times for interventions. One group that has been neglected in research to date is the group of pastoral and spiritual care workers in the health care system. Also, so far, there has been no transdisciplinary analysis of the connection between semantic representations of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the subjective experience of stress and coping processes. Especially in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic the assessment of personal threat and social support is based to a large extent on representations in public discourses and scientific journals. The DFG-FOR "Resilience in Religion and Spirituality" aims to find a transdisciplinary definition of resilience, which focuses on endurance, the formation of powerlessness, fear and anxiety and the integration of crisis experiences into individual life narratives. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic confronted the research group with a challenge and opportunity to advance preliminary work using concrete empirical evidence in this crisis. For this reason, the applicants have already carried out an online survey among health care workers on exposure, burden and protecting factors, which comprises >1,100 complete data sets. A special feature is (a) the focus on moral distress and spiritual factors, and (b) on including hospital chaplains in Germany e.g. in qualitative interviews. Also, a database of current articles on SARS-CoV-2 from medical, social sciences and theological disciplines was created with already >500 articles been analysed for semantic representations of the virus, the pandemic and the role of health workers. The aim of the project is to develop a prospective, longitudinal and transdisciplinary study from this preliminary work using a mixed-methods approach. By means of six surveys conducted at designated timepoints and using quantitative and qualitative methods (online surveys and interviews), typical courses of the development of resilience are to be described in relation to the course of the pandemic. Special focus is on the role of spirituality and people’s senses of coherence taking into account differences between medical and pastoral care workers, including semantic representations of the pandemic and the role of these different groups in scientific and public media. In our interdisciplinary cooperation these desiderata will be operationalised in survey items and interview questions in order to gain a better understanding of individual distress and the course of resilience as well as to formulate recommendations for maintaining physical, mental and spiritual health of healthcare workers in the long-term course of a pandemic.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, Uganda
• Co-Investigators: Professorin Dr. Nicole Enstmann; Professor Dr. Eberhard Hauschildt; Privatdozent Dr. Matthias Weigl
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Silvia Ferrari; Dr. Mhoira Leng; Professor Dr. Gustave Nachigera Mushagalusa; Dr. Eve Namisango