scholarly journals COVID-19 Staff Wellbeing Survey: longitudinal survey of psychological well-being among health and social care staff in Northern Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic

BJPsych Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie-Ann Jordan ◽  
Ciaran Shannon ◽  
Dympna Browne ◽  
Emma Carroll ◽  
Jennifer Maguire ◽  
...  

Background Throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, health and social care workers have faced unprecedented professional demands, all of which are likely to have placed considerable strain on their psychological well-being. Aims To measure the national prevalence of mental health symptoms within healthcare staff, and identify individual and organisational predictors of well-being. Method The COVID-19 Staff Wellbeing Survey is a longitudinal online survey of psychological well-being among health and social care staff in Northern Ireland. The survey included four time points separated by 3-month intervals; time 1 (November 2020; n = 3834) and time 2 (February 2021; n = 2898) results are presented here. At time 2, 84% of respondents had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The survey included four validated psychological well-being questionnaires (depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress and insomnia), as well as demographic and organisational measures. Results At time 1 and 2, a high proportion of staff reported moderate-to-severe symptoms of depression (30–36%), anxiety (26–27%), post-traumatic stress (30–32%) and insomnia (27–28%); overall, significance tests and effect size data suggested psychological well-being was generally stable between November 2020 and February 2021 for health and social care staff. Multiple linear regression models indicated that perceptions of less effective communication within their organisation predicted greater levels of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and insomnia. Conclusions This study highlights the need to offer psychological support to all health and social care staff, and to communicate with staff regularly, frequently and clearly regarding COVID-19 to help protect staff psychological well-being.

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zainab Ifthikar ◽  
Saima Sajjad Fakih ◽  
Saumy Johnson ◽  
Johnson Alex

Abstract Background In recent times, COVID-19 has been recognized as a public health emergency and thus far, most papers published on it are focused only on the clinical characteristics of infected patients. This pandemic has also made phenomenal emotional impact among the young and the old. We aimed to find out the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological well-being of medical students in a University at Riyadh. Results There were 309 participants in the study. Out of them 44% did not have PTSD, 29% had score more than 37 which might contribute to immune suppression, in 18.4% PTSD was a clinical concern and 8.6% had probable PTSD. Female participants were the majority in the group and they also had higher chance of having consequences than the male counterparts (P < 0.001). Avoidance score between male and female gender was significantly different. Conclusion COVID-19 pandemic has not just affected the physiological functioning of the affected individuals but also has had a probable post-traumatic stress disorder among young college students. Screening for psychological well-being and the treatment for PTSD is imperative in college, school and general population.


Author(s):  
Ekaterina N. Dymova

The aim of the presented study was to analyse emotional abuse as a stressor of high intensity in a group (n = 52) of girls aged 17 to 25. The level of post-traumatic stress, satisfaction with social support, including emotional and instrumental support, and a sense of psychological well-being and its components in particular, were considered. It has been shown that a high level of post-traumatic stress is characterised by low indicators for the components of psychological well-being and dissatisfaction with social support. Differences in positive relationships with others, in environmental management, self-acceptance and psychological well-being in general were obtained between girls, who had experienced emotional violence, and those, who had had no such a life experience; among other things, the former are not satisfied with social support and they note lack of its instrumental component. Abused girls experience difficulties in managing everyday affairs, in choosing social conditions that would satisfy their life needs and values; they are characterised by rejection of themselves, self-doubt, sense of loneliness, isolation and frustration. In addition, they feel dissatisfied with the attention and understanding of others, and at the same time, they feel distrust of others and are somewhat closed to accepting support.


2020 ◽  
pp. 175114372096510
Author(s):  
Andrew Bates ◽  
Julia Ottaway ◽  
Helen Moyses ◽  
Marcie Perrrow ◽  
Sophie Rushbrook ◽  
...  

Background Reports of significant psychological stress among frontline healthcare workers are emerging from the Covid-19 outbreak in China. Concerningly, these match findings from previous infective outbreaks, which resulted in long-term psychological pathology. Methods During the Covid-19 pandemic, a multi-disciplinary cohort of Intensive Care staff completed an online survey of psychological well-being and rated the perceived usefulness of supportive interventions. Results Sixty per cent of invited staff responded. Seventy-seven per cent reported normal/high level of resilience. Thirty-two staff (35%) reported anxiety of a level at which formal psychological assessment is recommended. Sixteen (14%) staff members reported symptomology suggestive of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Multiple regression analysis revealed a significant relationship between job-related well-being, anxiety (p = 0.003) and PTSD (p = 0.005). Nurses were seven times more likely than doctors to score higher anxiety (OR = 6.8; p = 0.01). Preferred supportive interventions were adequate personal protective equipment, rest facilities and regular breaks. In the subgroup with high anxiety, psychological support was perceived as significantly more useful, with significant reductions reported for rest facilities and PPE. Discussion We report concerning levels of anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptomology among intensive care staff during the Covid-19 crisis, significantly impacting job-related well-being. Nurses are disproportionately affected. Overall, physiologically protective supportive interventions were preferred by staff; however, staff with established anxiety desire professional psychological help. Our findings match reports from SARS 2003 and China 2019. To mitigate long-term psychological consequences of caring for patients during a pandemic, easily deliverable protective strategies should be instigated, supported by formal and longer-term psychological support. Particular attention should be paid to developing strategies which support nursing staff.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. e100458
Author(s):  
Anika R Petrella ◽  
Luke Hughes ◽  
Lorna A Fern ◽  
Lisa Monaghan ◽  
Benjamin Hannon ◽  
...  

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has drastically increased demands on healthcare workers (HCWs) leaving them vulnerable to acute psychological distress, burnout and post-traumatic stress. In response, supportive services in a central London hospital mobilised mental health support specifically for HCWs.AimsThis rapid evaluation assessed HCW psychological welfare during the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and their use of supportive services made available.MethodsDuring the acute phase of COVID-19 (April to May 2020) all staff working for the hospital were invited to complete an online survey assessing well-being (self-rated health, moral distress exposure, symptoms of burnout and psychological distress) and use of available supportive services (awareness of, use and perceived helpfulness). Associations among personal characteristics and psychological well-being were explored using correlations and linear regression.ResultsA total of 1127 staff participated in the rapid evaluation. On average, psychological distress was high (mean (SD): 22 (7.57)) regardless of role, with 84% of this sample scoring above the general population mean (14.5). Nearly half of the sample reported feeling emotionally drained and a profile emerged displaying higher levels of psychological distress and burnout in those who were younger and exposed to morally distressing situations, with this group also exhibiting greater support service use. Greater levels of burnout were associated with increased psychological distress when controlling for personal factors. During this acute phase of the pandemic, majority of staff used at least one service and rated it as helpful.ConclusionHCWs experienced high levels of psychological distress requiring continued support as the COVID-19 pandemic evolved. Although HCWs were aware of supportive services, uptake varied. In order to mitigate the risk of burnout and post-traumatic stress, long-term, effective strategies that facilitate staff accessing support are urgently required.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha Kader ◽  
Bushra Elhusein ◽  
Nirvana Swamy Kudlur Chandrappa ◽  
Abdulqadir J. Nashwan ◽  
Prem Chandra ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Intensive care unit (ICU) staff have faced unprecedented challenges during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which could significantly affect their mental health and well-being. The present study aimed to investigate perceived stress and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms reported by ICU staff working directly with COVID-19 patients. Methods The Perceived Stress Scale was used to assess perceived stress, the PTSD Diagnostic Scale for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th edition) was used to determine PTSD symptoms, and a sociodemographic questionnaire was used to record different sociodemographic variables. Results Altogether, 124 participants (57.2% of whom were men) were included in the analysis. The majority of participants perceived working in the ICU with COVID-19 patients as moderately to severely stressful. Moreover, 71.4% of doctors and 74.4% of nurses experienced moderate-to-severe perceived stress. The staff with previous ICU experience were less likely to have a probable diagnosis of PTSD than those without previous ICU experience. Conclusions Assessing perceived stress levels and PTSD among ICU staff may enhance our understanding of COVID-19-induced mental health challenges. Specific strategies to enhance ICU staff’s mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic should be employed and monitored regularly. Interventions aimed at alleviating sources of anxiety in a high-stress environment may reduce the likelihood of developing PTSD.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (S4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Hafieza Ismail ◽  
Ninghao Liu ◽  
Mengnan Du ◽  
Zhe He ◽  
Xia Hu

Abstract Background Emotions after surviving cancer can be complicated. The survivors may have gained new strength to continue life, but some of them may begin to deal with complicated feelings and emotional stress due to trauma and fear of cancer recurrence. The widespread use of Twitter for socializing has been the alternative medium for data collection compared to traditional studies of mental health, which primarily depend on information taken from medical staff with their consent. These social media data, to a certain extent, reflect the users’ psychological state. However, Twitter also contains a mix of noisy and genuine tweets. The process of manually identifying genuine tweets is expensive and time-consuming. Methods We stream the data using cancer as a keyword to filter the tweets with cancer-free and use post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related keywords to reduce the time spent on the annotation task. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) learns the representations of the input to identify cancer survivors with PTSD. Results The results present that the proposed CNN can effectively identify cancer survivors with PTSD. The experiments on real-world datasets show that our model outperforms the baselines and correctly classifies the new tweets. Conclusions PTSD is one of the severe anxiety disorders that could affect individuals who are exposed to traumatic events, including cancer. Cancer survivors are at risk of short-term or long-term effects on physical and psycho-social well-being. Therefore, the evaluation and treatment of PTSD are essential parts of cancer survivorship care. It will act as an alarming system by detecting the PTSD presence based on users’ postings on Twitter.


1993 ◽  
Vol 163 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Pynoos ◽  
Armen Goenjian ◽  
Madeline Tashjian ◽  
Meline Karakashian ◽  
Raffi Manjikian ◽  
...  

One and a half years after the devastating earthquake in Armenia in 1988, 231 children from three cities at increasing distances from the epicentre were randomly screened in their schools to determine the frequency and severity of post-traumatic stress reactions, using the Children's Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index (CPTSD-RI). A systematic clinical assessment of PTSD based on DSM-III-R criteria was also conducted on approximately half of this sample. A high CPTSD-RI score was strongly correlated with a clinical diagnosis of PTSD. A strong positive correlation was found between proximity to the epicentre and overall severity of post-traumatic stress reaction, as well as severity of core component symptoms of PTSD. High rates of chronic, severe post-traumatic stress reactions were found among children in the two most damaged cities, Spitak and Gumri. Analyses controlling for exposure revealed that girls reported more persistent fears than boys. These findings indicate that after catastrophic natural disaster, post-traumatic reactions in children may reach epidemic proportions, remain high for a prolonged period, and jeopardise the well-being of the child population of a large region. Systematic screening of children for PTSD can provide critical information for a rational public mental health programme after such a disaster.


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