Tracking Staff Mood and Concerns in a Pediatric Emergency Department During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction: Few studies have monitored health care worker mood and job satisfaction changes longitudinally throughout an epidemic. The objective of this study was to track staff mood, job satisfaction, questions, and suggestions in a pediatric emergency department over 1 year during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. We hypothesized that staff would experience heightened negative emotions earlier in the pandemic due to uncertainty around hospital protocols and the coronavirus disease 2019 disease process. Methods: A voluntary, cross sectional descriptive study using an anonymous electronic survey assessed job satisfaction and mood over 4 domains (sad-happy, angry-peaceful, exhausted-energized, fearful-confident) in pediatric emergency department staff members. Responses were reported with Likert scales and free-text fields. Results: Of 272 survey responses, most were from nurses and clinical technicians (N = 173, 63.6%), followed by physicians and physician assistants (N = 55, 20.2%) and nonmedical staff (N = 44, 16.2%). Department-wide values for the fearful-confident and angry-peaceful domains increased over time (P = .001 and P = .01, respectively), indicating an overall more confident and peaceful mood in department staff. Job satisfaction did not change over time or by staff role. Nurses and clinical technicians reported the most exhaustion (P = .002), and physicians and physician assistants reported the most fear (P = .03). We received a total of 71 comments, which we grouped into 4 themes: protocols and procedures, personnel, infection risk, and miscellaneous. Comments submitted early in the pandemic centered around intradepartmental protocols and procedures, with a peak in staffing comments 5 months into the pandemic. Discussion: An electronic survey monitoring mood, job satisfaction, and concerns in a pediatric emergency department identified mood changes in staff over the course of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.