This study aims to examine hospital employee’s anxiety, stress, and coping strategies during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in order to understand their experiences and needs and present foundational data for research on hospital employee’s stress coping strategies.

Data were collected from 277 hospital employee’s in three hospitals in Korea that admit and treat COVID-19 patients using a self-report questionnaire from November 15, 2020 to December 14, 2020. Anxiety was measured using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) developed by Spielberger (1972) and adapted by Kim (1978). Overall stress was measured using the Visual Analogue Stress Scale on a 0?10 scale. The four factors of stress were measured using the Factor causing stress subscale of the MERS-CoV questionnaire developed by Imran Klarid MD (2016). The Factor causing stress subscale was modified by five experts. Coping strategy was measured using the Way of coping tool developed by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) and translated and modified by Han and Oh (1990). The collected data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Scheffe’s post-hoc test, and Pearson correlation using the SPSS Win 25.0 software.

The following results were obtained:

1. The mean anxiety score was 46.58±9.60, and 74 (26.7%) participants showed anxiety symptoms. The mean stress score was 6.94±1.73, and 26 (9.4%) had a stress score of 10, the highest rated stress.
2. Anxiety and stress statistically significantly differed according to type of occupation. Nurses had higher anxiety than physicians and medical technicians, while administrators had higher anxiety than medical technicians. Nurses and administrators had higher stress than medical technicians. Coping strategies did not significantly differ according to type of occupation. The four factors of stress (workload, infection, exhaustion, personal protection equipment (PPE)) significantly differed according to type of occupation, with nurses having the highest stress for all four domains. Regarding the factors of coping strategies, problem-focused coping and positive perspective significantly differed according to type of occupation, where medical technicians showed higher problem-focused coping than nurses, while medical technicians and administrators showed higher positive perspective than nurses.

3. Anxiety significantly differed according to sex and work unit. Stress significantly differed according to sex, work unit, and marital status, and coping strategies significantly differed according to work unit.

4. In the analysis of correlation among anxiety, stress, and coping strategy, anxiety was positively correlated with stress. Anxiety was negatively correlated with coping strategies and with the problem-focused coping, exploration of social support, positive perspective, and tension relief domains of coping strategies. Stress was negatively correlated with the problem-focused coping, and tension relief domains of coping strategies.
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In conclusion, health care workers had higher anxiety compared to the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they had the highest stress from workload. The most common coping strategies they employed were problem-focused coping, positive perspective, and exploration of social support. This study is significant in that it investigated anxiety, stress, and coping strategies of hospital employee’s who work in a special setting, namely a hopital, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that it presented baseline data for developing measures that boost hospital employee’s quality of life and ultimately maintaining a high quality of care by understanding their stress, help them utilize appropriate coping strategies, and reduce their anxiety.