**3. Results**

## *3.1. Descriptive Characteristics*

A total of 9898 nurses completed the questionnaire, with a response rate of about 2.5%. Participants' characteristics are shown in Table 1. Overall, 85.1% of respondents were women, 14.0% were 18 to 29 years old, 26.4% were 30 to 39, 30.7% were 40 to 49, and 28.1% were 50 and more. Concerning work practice, 55.4% were NHCIs, 39.0% were NPPs, and 5.6% were both. This last group was included in the general analyses but, because of its small size (*n* = 553) compared to the others, it was not included in the stratified analyses.

**Table 1.** Descriptive characteristics for the whole sample and both types of practice.



**Table 1.** *Cont.*

Remark: some nurses who participated in the study had a mixed practice alternating between hospital/care institution and private work. They were included in the general analyses but, because of how few they were in number (*n* = 553) compared to the other two categories, they were not included in the stratified analyses. NHCI: nurses working at hospitals or care institutions; NPP: nurses in private practice.

Moreover, 26.7% of the respondents had worked in COVID-19-specific units, 50.1% had worked in facilities not initially dedicated to COVID-19 but that were temporarily transformed to receive COVID-19 patients, and 20.0% had only worked in units that never received COVID-19 patients. Finally, 25.2% of the participants had been reassigned to another service than their usual one at least once since the beginning of the pandemic.

Most coping strategies were reported to be used almost equally often (mean scores ranged between 2.2 and 2.7; SD ranged from 0.67 to 0.78), except for denial, humor, religion, substance use, and behavioral disengagement, which participants used less often (means ranged between 1.3 and 1.9 and SDs ranged between 0.59 and 0.80).
