The experience, secondary stressors, and coping strategies of UK social care workers during Covid-19: an exploratory study providing a diagram of the interactions between stressors, destressors, and coping strategies

Previous literature focuses on HSCWs (health and social care workers) in conjoined health and social care settings because both populations have different but overlapping roles. This study sought to evidence the exclusive experiences of social care workers (SCWS) during Covid-19.

Thematic analysis exploring the experience, secondary stressors, and coping strategies of SCWs during Covid-19 were informed by 8 semi-structured interviews, from a Critical Realist epistemology. Participants were female (23-70years).

Participant experiences conceptualised into 4 themes: The Integration & Protection of Service Users; Assailed on All Fronts; Collision & Collusion; The Tools & Tactics of the Perseverant. The themes represent participants’ care for their clients; feeling unprotected and threatened from all sides; conflicts between social roles and the discordance between policy and action; and changes in action and thought to promote endurance and wellbeing, respectively.

Secondary stressors existed across domains and social roles, characterised by fear, lacking physical and social resources, and uncertainty. Conflicts existed primarily within the individual, between personal and professional ethics, and social roles and domains.

Participants’ coping strategies were inductively analysed and compared against current coping literature. Emotion-focused coping strategies significantly dominated participant approaches to Covid-19, potentially signalling participants’ attempts, or failure, to cope. This finding may be a pre-Covid artifact.This study contributes a diagram suggesting the relationships between the individual, and their stressors, coping strategies and de-stressors; and includes a qualitative differentiation and description of stress modifiers.