The Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare Workers
Categories: Professionals
By Marianna Abashian, M.S., Director of Professional Services, Brain Injury Association of America
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, news feeds and social media were filled with images of healthcare workers with mask-bruised faces, their stories about the quiet despair of working with people who were seriously ill and dying, and reports of hospitals overwhelmed by the deluge of patients that, at least at the beginning, they could not treat with proven best clinical practices. While the virus continues to ravage Brazil and India, among other countries, the United States is moving towards opening up again and returning to some semblance of normalcy. Two recent articles have illustrated that, while many of us have shifted our attention to life as usual, we need to give sincere consideration to healthcare workers whose mental health has been eroded by the intensity and duration of the pandemic and the losses they experienced.
A Washington Post – Kaiser Family Foundation poll recently found that 6 in 10 healthcare workers report the pandemic year has harmed their mental health and 3 in 10 healthcare workers are thinking of leaving healthcare completely. According to the Post, these are “early warnings” that could lead to widespread mental health problems for “a group that has already sacrificed so much to get the nation through this pandemic.”
The concept of healthcare workers’ return to normal is compared to combatants returning from war and 9/11 first responders, both of whom had to process significant effects of experienced trauma. Unfortunately, many healthcare workers must also overcome the unrealistic stigma of reporting treating their mental health issues.
Similarly, Mental Health America (MHA) has issued an alarming report on the mental health of healthcare workers during the pandemic that noted increasing anxiety, depression, and loneliness, among other conditions, in healthcare workers. Those who completed the survey reported, among other things:
- 93% were stressed
- 86% had symptoms of anxiety
- 76% were exhausted and burned out
- 76% were concerned about exposing their children to COVID-19
- 82% were emotionally exhausted
- 63% had work-related dread
- 55% had career uncertainty
- 52% had compassion fatigue
- 39-45% reported a lack of emotional support
MHA also compares healthcare workers’ environments to war zones and recommends as essential the provision of mental health resources to healthcare workers. Click here to access MHA’s Mental Health and COVID-19 Resources for Frontline Workers page.
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