Help-Seeking Preferences and Influencing Factors Among Chinese Nurses Exposed to COVID-19: A Person-Centered Approach

This study aimed to explore help-seeking preference categories and crucial influencing factors among community nurses exposed to COVID-19 in China using a new person-centered approach.

A cross-sectional design including an online self-reported questionnaire survey was used.

A total of 667 nurses who participated in COVID-19 prevention and control work were recruited. Latent class analysis and logistic regression were used to analyze the data using Mplus and SPSS.

Two latent classes of help-seeking preferences were identified: high help-seeking preferences (33.58%) and low help-seeking preferences (66.42%). Most sampled nurses had relatively low help-seeking preferences when facing psychological threats during COVID-19. Logistic regression showed that career duration, perceived social support, online help-seeking intention, and social media exposure negatively affected low help-seeking preferences.

Career duration, perceived social support, online help-seeking intention, and social media exposure could be key factors influencing help-seeking preferences among Chinese nurses exposed to public emergencies. It is necessary to implement relevant intervention measures, such as focusing on nurses whose career durations are shorter, improving nurses' perceived social support, strengthening positive media publicity, and developing comprehensive online mental health services that promote nurses' help-seeking preferences and behaviors to reduce mental illness during public health emergencies.

Help-seeking preferences are relatively low among Chinese nurses during public emergencies. Based on the major influencing factors of help-seeking preferences, including social support and social media exposure, more interventions must be developed for prompting psychological help-seeking intentions among Chinese nurses.