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Research

Psychologists practice self-care during the pandemic

By Krag Ferenz, PhD, Luona Lin, Sophie Bethune, C. Vaile Wright, PhD, Amrita Ghaness, BA, Karen Stamm, PhD, Jessica Conroy, and Audrye Tasevoli Date created: March 1, 2021 1 min read

Vol. 52 No. 2
Print version: page 21

APA Style leaf logo Cite This Article in APA Style
Ferenz, K., Lin, L., Bethune, S., Wright, C. V., Ghaness, A., Stamm, K., Conroy, J., & Tasevoli, A. (2021, March 1). Datapoint: Psychologists practice self-care during the pandemic. Monitor on Psychology, 52(2). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/03/datapoint-self-care

woman looking tired in front of a laptop
  • In response to a survey in September 2020,1 U.S. psychologists reported a mean stress level of 5.9 related to the coronavirus pandemic, on a scale of 1–10:2 24% reported stress levels during the past month under 5, 68% reported stress levels of 5–8, and 6% reported a stress level of 9 or 10.3
  • More than 4 in 10 psychologists (41%) said that they felt burned out, and 30% said that they have not been able to meet the demand for treatment from their patients. However, a majority of psychologists reported that they have been able to practice self-care (66%) and maintain a positive work-life balance (55%)
graph depicting the more significant stress level of psychologists is over 50 percent

Graph showing that more than half of psychologists surveyed practiced self-care

1 Results are from the American Psychological Association’s COVID-19 Telehealth Practitioner Survey. The survey was distributed to a geographically representative sample of U.S. psychologists including both APA members and nonmembers. The survey was fielded from Aug. 28 to Oct. 5, 2020. A total of 1,787 psychologists responded to the survey. This is a non-probability sample, and as such it is not possible to calculate confidence intervals or margins of error.

2 The overall stress level for psychologists (5.9) is comparable to the stress level of the U.S. population (5.9). American Psychological Association. Stress in AmericaTM 2020opens in new window. 

3 Details may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding.

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graphics showing that more than half of all psychologists experience stress but also practice self-care

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