Forgotten Heroes: Experiences of Health Care Support Workers Regarding Burnout and Resilience During Pandemic, A Qualitative Approach.

Abstract

Health care support workers have been facing several challenges due to the stressful environment in COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the gap in literature, it is mandatory to explore their experiences to identify burnout, predisposing factors, and possible interventions. We conducted qualitative research with a hermeneutic phenomenological method. Participants belonged to cleaning services, security, and hospital administration areas at a hospital in Bogotá. We used semistructured individual interviews. The analysis approaches were deductive and inductive. As main concepts, we found the following: fear of infection and coping mechanisms, dealing with COVID-19 and being part of the health care support system, overwhelming workload and motivation to keep going and socioeconomic conditions. We found burnout predisposing factors; however, the participants did not express symptoms of burnout syndrome. We believe protective factors such as resilience are influential concerning this outcome.