Clinician mental health and well-being during global healthcare crises: evidence learned from prior epidemics for COVID-19 pandemic.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Jun J ; Melnyk BM ; Tucker S
• Description:
  Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is sweeping across the globe, having sickened more than 640,000 people and claimed over 30,000 lives in approximately 202 countries at the time of writing with no sign of slowing down (World Health Organization, 2020). Each time, a pandemic or an epidemic disease occurs, such as measles, scarlet fever, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, or the flu of 2013, and healthcare professionals are on the front lines, battling diseases and caring for sick and dying patients, even while knowingly putting themselves at risk (Borghese, Di Donato, Ruotolo, & Fiegender, 2020). An increasing number of healthcare professionals are being infected with COVID-19, and some paid the ultimate price, including the assistant nurse manager in New York who died in March (Genzlinger, 2020). Unfortunately, this number continues to rise, given that healthcare professionals are at such high risk for exposure (Gamio, 2020). A recent photograph of a nurse in Italy collapsed on her desk while still donning protective gear (Pisa, 2020) went viral on Twitter and other social media platforms. While the collective response to this image was positive, eliciting praise for nurses and doctors as unsung heroes, a closer examination of the photograph reveals the "absolutely shattered" nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals who are struggling to manage this crisis (Pisa, 2020). Exhausted providers amid the COVID-19 pandemic feel the heavy burden of their professional duty to serve while running thin on personnel and making do with little rest and insufficient time for recovery, not to mention having to put aside professional standards, such as evidence-based practice, in the face of personal protective equipment shortages (Stockman & Baker, 2020). Such conditions, especially when experienced in high-risk settings, render healthcare professionals increasingly more susceptible to the disease. What's more, even if healthcare professionals manage to avoid infection themselves, the psychological distress associated with an infectious disease outbreak and the fear of spreading the virus to their families remain serious concerns (Maunder et al., 2006; McAlonan et al., 2007). To date, two nurses who were positive for COVID-19 have committed suicide, one in France and one in Italy. Typically manifested as insomnia, anxiety, fear of illness, frustration, anger, and depression, these psychological effects also can linger long after the danger has passed (Maunder et al., 2006; McAlonan et al., 2007). This does not even consider the multiple other stressors in their lives that existed before the crisis, nor the effects of social isolation, which has become a governing norm for safety. With suicide on the rise for physicians and nurses (Davidson, Proudfoot, Lee, Terterian, & Zisook, 2020) before this pandemic, healthcare systems must act now to put preventive and early intervention strategies in place to promote the health, well-being, and retention of their workforce. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Communicable Diseases Health Personnel Mental Health Nervous System Occupational Health Safety Stress, Psychological Suicide
• Keywords:
  Nurses; Nursing; Health care workers; Mental health; Work organization; Worker health; Suicide; Coronavirus; COVID-19; Psychological effects; Job stress; TWH; Total Worker Health
• ISSN:
  1545-102X
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New York ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 2 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  182-184
• Volume:
  17
• Issue:
  3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20065820
• Citation:
  Worldviews Evid Based Nurs 2020 Jun; 17(3):182-184
• Contact Point Address:
  Jin Jun PhD, School of Nursing and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
• Email:
  jinjun@umich.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2020
• Performing Organization:
  Mount Sinai School of Medicine
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing
• End Date:
  20270630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:da05cb7b05960c0af482f52f5711099f14811a1f5404c36ae2a6f47a06f3c90f008aa7e08780e03f8d4b3a24594ad29b9103d25654e807522f23efdeddc0f0be
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/248800/cdc_248800_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 162.03 KB ]