*3.1. Participants*

The general characteristics of the sample are presented in Table 1. Out of 2039 participants, 1216 (59.6%) individuals represented medical professions while 823 (40.4%) pursued non-medical occupations. The vast majority of respondents, regardless of career, were women (80.0% among medical professionals and 74.4% among non-medical professionals). Data were collected from respondents representing all administrative regions in Poland, and the majority of them (63.2%) represented very big cities (>300,000 inhabitants). The medical professionals included physicians (47.3%), nurses (16.5%), pharmacists (7.3%), laboratory diagnosticians (5.9%), dentists (5.3%), paramedics (4.9%), clinical psychologists or psychotherapists (3.5%), physiotherapists (3.3%), midwives (2%), secretaries or medical recorders (1.4%), occupational medical technicians (1.4%), dental assistants (0.7%), care assistants (0.4%), medical interns (0.1%) and occupational therapists (0.1%). The non-medical professionals included administrative staff and accountants (16.6%), teachers and lecturers (14.3%), service and trade workers (12.4%), Information Technology employees (11.7%), engineers and other highly qualified employees (9.7%), entrepreneurs (3.5%), people in managerial positions (3.4), manual workers (2.4%), scientists (1.9%), journalists (1.6%), social workers (1.3%), non-clinical psychologists or psychotherapists (1.3%), technical workers (1.2%), employees of uniformed services (0.5%) and others (18.2%). The number of females was significantly higher among the medical professionals. This group of participants was more likely to report an urban place of residence, caring for a disabled person, major changes in private life, working on a shift schedule, contact with a COVID-19 patient without personal protective equipment, contact with COVID-19 patients at work, work experience of death due to COVID-19 and too few employees compared to the workload. They were also less likely to report having children, work location change during the pandemic and appropriate protection against infection. Finally, medical professionals had significantly higher weekly working time and length of service.

**Table 1.** General characteristics of medical professionals and individuals representing non-medical professionals.


COVID-19, novel coronavirus disease 2019. Data expressed as *n* (%) or mean (SD).
