Fear of Covid-19, Psychological Distress, and Coping Among the Frontline Healthcare Workers

Frontline Healthcare workers were battling at the forefront in the time of uncertain and sudden emergence of COVID-19 pandemic. While providing care for these patients, they encountered numerous obstacles, such as increased workload, organizational changes, risk exposure, and societal stigma; yet they were expected to manage these difficulties and fulfill their responsibilities for the sake of humanity. Moreover, the second wave of this pandemic took a disastrous toll to the human lives and put the country’s healthcare system in grave distress. In this context, the present study aimed to assess the mediating role of psychological distress among the frontline healthcare workers’ fear of COVID and coping. Fear of COVID-19 scale, DASS-21 and Coping questionnaire were used for data collection from 155 frontline healthcare workers from Sir Sunder Lal Hospital, Banaras Hindu University (Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh). Hayes PROCESS macro (Model 4) was used to assess the direct and indirect effects of fear of COVID-19 on coping, with psychological distress as the mediating variable. The results showed that psychological distress partially mediates the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and coping among frontline healthcare workers. These findings highlight the necessity of focused mental health care for the frontline healthcare professionals to reduce distress and promote better coping mechanisms in the event of current and upcoming public health crises.