Psychological burden of covid-19 health crisis on health professionals and interventions to minimize the effect: what has history already taught us?
Riv Psichiatr
; 56(2): 57-63, 2021.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1202085
ABSTRACT
Health professionals have been at the frontline of the health service since the outbreak of covid-19, responding promptly to diagnose, support and treat infected patients. World Health Organization (WHO) has already praised their contribution and their essential role in controlling this disease. Some of the main concerns of covid-19's impact to health service staff include work overload, exhaustion, and high risk of self-infection or transmission to family members. Moreover, during the pandemic, caregivers' mental health inevitably becomes vulnerable, with salient stress and anxiety-related symptoms. Uncertainty, fear of contagion, guilt, hopelessness, stigmatization and, in some cases, long-term post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are few of the potential effects posed by this outbreak on health workers. In this review, lessons learnt from previous global crises or pandemics on the psychological impact of health workers are presented. History could potentially provide essential information on how to best manage, support and optimize our approach to this highly appreciated and much needed group of professionals. Targeted and prompt interventions could reduce the psychological strain of health professionals, thus, further improving provided patient care. Covid-19 is an on-going health crisis and this work, even though generated by limited existing data, could be used to inform governments and/or institutions and lead on decisions and changes in current guidelines.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Health Personnel
/
Psychological Distress
/
COVID-19
/
Occupational Diseases
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Riv Psichiatr
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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