Impact of Nursing Professional Values on Depression, Stress, and Anxiety among Nurses during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Aim: The aim was to explore the association between nursing professional values (NPV) and mental health among registered nurses (RN) in Spain.

Background: Nursing is a profession rooted in strong professional values, which guide and shape clinical practice and occupational behaviors. NPV should serve as a source of support in situations of great uncertainty.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted during the remission phase of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (December 2020-January 2021) among a sample of Spanish RN (n = 420). NPV were assessed using the Nursing Professional Values Scale (NPVS-R), comprising 26 items grouped into five factors: caring, activism, trust, professionalism, and justice. Perceived stress, anxiety, and depression were measured by the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Adjusted linear regressions were used to estimate b coefficients for the associations between NPV scores and the three mental health indicators.

Results: The fully-adjusted analysis, including sociodemographic and occupational variables, revealed that higher activism scores were associated with higher scores of stress (b coefficient: 0.46; 95% confidence interval: 0.03-0.88; p value: 0.035), anxiety (0.24; 0.05-0.43; 0.014), and depression (0.19; 0.01-0.36; 0.035). No other NPV was associated with mental health.

Conclusion: Organizational policies and programs should be established to protect the most activist RNs and to mitigate the potential detrimental effect of activism on mental health at times and/or circumstances of high workloads and personal stress.

Figure 1

Core professional values of nursing according to Weis and Schank [21, 25, 26].