Abstract
Objective
To examine the impact of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2 (COVID-19) pandemic on Residents Assistants (RA) at a public university in the Midwest.
Participants
Sixty-seven RAs that had been offered an RA position for the ‘20-’21 academic year.
Methods
An online cross-sectional survey measuring socio-demographics, stress, and well-being was fielded. MANCOVA models evaluated the impact of COVID-19 on well-being of Current RAs and compared to the non-current RA groups.
Results
Sixty-seven RAs provided valid data. Overall, 47% of RAs had moderate-severe anxiety and 86.3% had moderate-high level of stress. Current RAs perceiving a great impact of COVID on life had significantly more stress, anxiety, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress than those who did not. RAs who started then quit experienced significantly higher secondary trauma compared to Current RAs.
Conclusions
Further research is needed to better understand the experiences and of RAs and to develop policies and programs to support RAs.
Author contributions
AC contributed to the conception and design of the work, design of the survey, acquisition of data, analysis of open-ended survey questions, and drafting the manuscript, and was the principal investigator overseeing the study. RB contributed to the design of the work and design of the survey. HP contributed to the data analysis and drafting the quantitative methods and results. DS contributed to the data analysis and reviewing the quantitative methods and results. RA contributed to the conception and design of the work, drafting the manuscript, and was the mentor overseeing the project.
Conflict of interest disclosure
The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of the University of Iowa.