The Courage to Continue: Healthcare Social Worker’s Resilience During COVID-19

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated disparities in access to healthcare and mental health, often forcing healthcare social workers into ethical and moral dilemmas as they endeavor to provide equitable, humanistic care to their patients and caregivers. The purpose of this mixed method study was to explore how COVID-19-related personal and professional grief and losses impacted healthcare social worker’s distress and resilience. Participants were recruited through healthcare social work professional organizations from September-November 2020. Participants (N = 246) completed an online survey capturing sociodemographic variables, as well as mental distress, pandemic-related meaning-making, and resilience. Data analysis included correlations and regressions pertaining to meaning-making, emotional distress, and resilience, as well as thematic analysis of participants’ open-ended survey responses. Approximately one-third of participants reported emotional distress and difficulty in finding meaning from their pandemic-related losses. Participants reported a lower level of resilience when compared with the United States general population. Three themes emerged from social workers’ qualitative responses: the hardest year of my career; the collective loss of our normal; and we were built for this. Pandemic-related grief permeates social workers’ daily lives; yet their training and resilience foster hope to positively impact their clients, communities, and families.