Psychological impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in community pharmacists: A longitudinal study

Background COVID-19 has negatively impacted the mental health of frontline health care workers, including pharmacists. Objective(s) The aim of this longitudinal study was to assess the psychological impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in French owner community pharmacists. Methods We carried out a postal-based survey to assess the psychological difficulties of the COVID-19 outbreak in French owner community pharmacists based on three psychologically validated self-report questionnaires: Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Impact of Event Scale-revised (IES-R) and Maslach Burnout Inventory. The baseline assessment was during the first sanitary lockdown period and the second one 5 months later. Results The sample consists of 135 owner community pharmacists. At follow-up, 67 answered the questionnaires (response rate: 49.6%). The mean scores of the PSS and IES-R significantly decreased (p=0.002). Fifteen pharmacists reported significant posttraumatic stress symptoms (23.1%) at baseline and eleven at follow-up (16.4%, p=0.02). Age and sex were not significantly associated with persistent posttraumatic stress or burnout symptoms. Conclusion This is the first longitudinal study that showed the psychological impact of owner community pharmacists as health care workers dealing with their community's COVID-19 outbreak. Based on validated self-report questionnaires, stress, posttraumatic stress and burnout symptoms decreased during follow-up. It is necessary to continue monitoring psychological difficulties for health care workers, especially during consecutive waves of the COVID-19 outbreak.