Mindfulness and psychological distress in men during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of environmental mastery and purpose in life.

Men's mental health has been severely affected during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many studies focussing on the determinants of men's psychological distress. This study aimed at examining the relationships between mindfulness, environmental mastery (EM), purpose in life (PL) and indicators of psychological distress (i.e., common mental disorders and perceived stress). This was a cross-sectional online study in which participants were 1,006 men aged between 29 and 39 years (45.1%), residing in Brazil during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A parallel multiple mediator model was used to test the study variables' relationships, using mindfulness as the independent variable and indicators of psychological distress as the dependent variables. Results indicated that EM and PL significantly mediated the effects of mindfulness on men's psychological distress, lowering its levels and accounting for 31% of common mental disorders and 51% of perceived stress. Implications for public health policies and clinical practice are discussed.

Impact of Anxiety on Health-Related Quality of Life and Symptoms of Burnout in Multi-Professional Residents in Brazil During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

We aimed to determine the prevalence of anxiety and to identify associated factors among multi-professional residents in Brazil during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional study included a sample of 752 multi-professional residents selected by snowball technique. Symptoms of anxiety were measured by the Beck anxiety inventory scale (≥ 16 cut-off). We used WHOQOL-BREF to access the health-related quality of life and the Maslach Burnout Inventory to measure the burnout syndrome. PR and respective 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using the Poisson regression model. The prevalence of anxiety was 41.2% (310/752). Some variables were strongly associated with anxiety: afraid of getting COVID-19; extra work demand during COVID-19 pandemic; sweating/wheezing/increased heart rate during work; feeling safe when using personal protective equipment at work, and psychological support from residence preceptors. Residents with symptoms of anxiety showed high emotional exhaustion at work (36.6 ± 9.6 vs. 24.7 ± 10.7, P = 0.001) and depersonalization (8.9 ± 6.0 vs. 5.6 ± 4.9, P = 0.001). Correlations coefficients between emotional exhaustion versus Physical WHOQOL-BREF and between emotional exhaustion versus Psychological WHOQOL-BREF were significantly lower among residents without anxiety (P = 0.027 and P = 0,03, respectively). The prevalence of anxiety was high and strongly associated with several variables, particularly with being afraid of getting COVID-19, the perception of workload, somatization (sweating, wheezing and increased heart rate during work), feeling unsafe when using personal protective equipment, and lack of psychological support from residence preceptors. Anxiety was associated with increased emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and low health-related quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Low WHOQOL-BREF environment domain, and high emotional exhaustion MBI domain increased the chances of presenting symptoms of anxiety.

Anxiety, health-related quality of life, and symptoms of burnout in frontline physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 pandemic caused increased workload and stress for health professionals involved in the care of such patients. We aimed to describe the health-related quality of life, and burnout in frontline physicians diagnosed with anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted during the first-wave phase of COVID-19, from September to October 2020. Questionnaires were sent electronically to 450 physicians from State of Bahia, assessing symptoms of anxiety, health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and burnout syndrome. For the categorical variables, the Pearson's chi-square test was used and difference between means was compare using the Mann-Whitney test. was Groups with and without anxiety symptoms were compared using prevalence ratios (PR). Pearson's correlation measured the correlation between WHOQOL-BREF and MBI (Maslach Burnout Inventory) domains. The Fisher r-to-z transformation was used to assess the significance of the difference between two correlation coefficients. The significance level was <0.05. RESULTS: Out of the 450 physicians, 223 (49,6%) completely answered the questionnaire and 38 (17%) showed symptoms of anxiety. Physicians with anxiety had higher scores in emotional exhaustion (EE) (38.31 ± 8.59 vs 25.31±0.87; p = 0.0001) and depersonalization (DP) (9.0 ± 5.6 vs 5.9 ± 5.3; p = 0.001) domains, and lower scores in personal accomplishment (PA) (32.1 ± 8.2 vs 36.3 ± 7.6; p = 0.004), than those without anxiety. All correlations between WHOQOL-BREF domains and MBI in physicians without anxiety were significant (p = 0.01). CONCLUSION: Physicians with anxiety showed more emotional exhaustion, less personal accomplishment, and lower quality of life. All domains of WHOQOL BREF were correlated with all MBI domains among physicians without anxiety. Differences in correlation according to anxiety were remarkable in psychological HOQOL BREF domain and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization MBI domains. The effect of anxiety leading to poorer levels of perceived health needs to be further investigated.