Description of Quebec (Canada) Nurses’ Psychological Health and Identification of Its Determinants in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study Protocol
Introduction: Nurses are regularly exposed to difficult events in their work. This exposure, which has increased in the context of the pandemic, would weaken their psychological health. The profile of the psychological health of these health professionals and its determinants in the Quebec context are still unknown, but we can anticipate that the pandemic will negatively affect the psychological health of nurses. Objectives: This article describes the research protocol of a cross-sectional observational study among Quebec nurses. This study aims to produce evidence-based data on the psychological health of these nurses during the pandemic. Methods: It is published retrospectively to the data collection that was conducted between July and September 2020. A total of 15,000 Quebec nurses selected by simple random sampling were invited to fill out an online survey. Descriptive statistics and multivariate regression analyses will be used to describe the participants, the participants’ psychological health and their psychological health’s determinants. Discussion and conclusion: The anticipated results of this study will be compared to the literature on the subject. Indeed, other authors have measured psychological health in different contexts (epidemic, pandemic, country, population). The results of this study will serve as a basis for developing and deploying a province-wide intervention to improve the psychological health of this population of workers.