Phase‐specific networks of job stress, anxiety and insomnia during acute crisis and chronic strain: A citywide study of public health nurses in Shanghai

Description

Quyige Gao and twelve colleagues mapped how stress, anxiety, and poor sleep connect in Shanghai's public health nurses across two phases of emergency work. They surveyed every community health center in the city twice. The first round came during the acute crisis of late 2022, with over fifteen hundred nurses answering; the second a year later, during the grinding chronic phase, with even more respondents. Network models then charted which symptoms sat at the center of the web each time.

Overall distress eased in the chronic phase, yet the web itself rewired. During the crisis, unclear roles and heavy effort demands anchored the network alongside jumpy anxiety. During chronic strain, relentless workload and trouble relaxing took the center. Work stressors sat upstream in every model, feeding the rest. Younger nurses showed tighter symptom webs during the crisis. The authors say support must change with the phase, clarity first and recovery later.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13620847