Mental health and Cognitive Functioning in Healthcare Workers and Public Safety Personnel

Abstract

Healthcare workers (HCWs) and public safety personnel (PSP) are at an elevated risk for adverse mental health outcomes, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, and increased suicidality. Workplace challenges and burdens were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which further highlighted the physical and mental health vulnerabilities of HCWs and PSP. As a result, there has been a growing interest from mental health professionals and researchers in understanding the unique stresses and mental health risks these individuals face. Moral injury (MI), a phenomenon linked to the unique experiences of HCWs and PSP, has been associated with adverse mental health outcomes. Cognitive impairments, such as memory disturbances, are also frequently observed in these populations. This thesis explored the relation between MI and memory disturbances and how this relation was impacted by emotion regulation (ER) and self-compassion (SC). In addition, we investigated how SC and ER influenced the relation between MI and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). In the first study of this thesis, we explored these relations through a series of correlational, moderated mediation analyses of self-report measures collected among HCWs and PSP during the COVID-19 pandemic. These analyses revealed significant relations between MI and memory disturbances, where higher levels of moral injury were associated with elevated levels of memory disturbances, particularly in relation to subscales of guilt and shame. Interestingly, these effects were moderated by ER and mediated by SC at high levels of ER difficulties. In the second study of the thesis, we conducted various correlational analyses as well as explored the relation between MI and ACEs alongside the impacts of SC and ER through moderated mediation analysis. The analyses in this study revealed significant relations between MI and ACEs regarding the mediating effect of SC and the moderating effect of ER at medium and low levels of ER difficulties.