팬데믹이 간호노동 수행과정에서 우울감에 영향을 미치는 요인 분석 - 코로나19 업무 경험, 직무소진, 의료기관 대응 인식 간의 효과를 중심으로

This study aimed to understand what factors contributed to the worsening of depression in the nursing work process during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, we examined the mechanisms through which COVID-19-related work experiences, job burnout, and the response system established by medical institutions collectively promoted nurses' depression levels. The results showed that job burnout had a significant positive effect on depression levels, as did COVID-19-related work experience. In addition, perceptions of the responding level of medical institutions in terms of management communication and worker protection measures in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak had a significant effect on nurses’ depression levels. The order of influential effect of key independent variables revealed through multiple regression analysis were: job burnout > lack of labor protection measures > COVID-19-related work experience > lack of management communication. We also found that job burnout had a mediating effect between COVID-19-related work experience and depression levels, and that poor management communication and lack of worker protection measures at medical institutions had a moderating effect between job burnout and depression levels. This study is meaningful in that it comprehensively and multidimensionally identified the causes of worsening psychological depression in the nurses’ working process in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, given the methodological limitations of cross-sectional studies and the possibility that a sufficient sample number of nurses who experienced severe situations during the early stages of the pandemic may not have been included, complementary follow-up studies that overcome the limitations of this study are needed.