Abstract
Background: Family Medicine Residents face stressors related to their professional responsibilities, ethics, and relationships with patients, supervisors, and society. These stressors were found to increase during the COVID-19 crisis and can lead to maladaptive coping and affect their resilience.
Objectives: to assess family medicine residents' level of resilience coping self-efficacy during COVID-19 crisis.
Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 208 family medicine residents in the Western region of Saudi Arabia. Resilience and coping self-efficacy were assessed using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-25 items (CD-RISC-25) and coping self-efficacy scale (CSES), respectively. Professional stressors including work environment satisfaction (WES) were assessed.
Results: The mean (SD) CD-RISC-25 and CSEC score was 54.53 (19.69) out of 100 and 136.81 (63.67) out of 260, respectively. Suboptimal resilience was independently associated with shorter (<10 min.) consultation time (OR=3.83, p=0.023) and lower CSES score (OR=0.98, p<0.001), with 32.5% variance. CSES score was independently explained by WES score (B=16.06, p<0.001), spiritual fulfillment (B=11.71, p=0.011), and home-job travel time (B=9.12, p=0.032) in a positive relationship; whereas it was negatively associated with history of significant disease (B= -28.66, p=0.002).
Conclusion: Family medicine residents are at high-risk for psychological distress during the COVID-19 crisis, indicated by low resilience and coping self-efficacy levels. The model suggests high impact of WES and spiritual fulfillment in coping self-efficacy indicating relevance in resilience-promoting interventions.