Encountering Covid-19 and perceived stress and the role of a health climate among medical workers

Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 epidemic, work stress among health sector employees has risen too high. The study aims at determining the effect of the current coronavirus epidemic in the form of stress perceived among the medical workers in Pakistan and to discover the moderating role played by a healthy climate in offsetting it. The data was collected from 255 medical workers through a self-administered online questionnaire. Multiple Hierarchical Regression was used as a tool to test the hypotheses of the study. The results obtained indicate a correlation between the pandemic and the stress caused by it among the health workers, whereas, the role of a wholesome climate in the reduction of stress among them was found lacking. Sub-hypotheses indicate that the healthy environment provided by supervisors is effective in reducing the impact of workers' handling of the Covid-19 epidemic and perceived stress, while the healthy environment provided by hospitals in general or by workgroups fails to cause such positive change. This revelation necessitates the adoption of compulsory precautionary measures on the part of relevant authorities, because increase in stress caused by the pandemic can prove more lethal than the pandemic itself. The threat of the coronavirus pandemic has emerged as a massive socio-economic challenge for the global community, especially for the developing countries like Pakistan which faces serious socio-economic challenges in the current scenario. On account of the similarity of situations, the results obtained through this study can be safely generalized to other developing countries, particularly from the South Asian region.