•The estimated self-reported rates of anxiety symptoms and depression symptoms among medical staff were 13.3% and 18.4% respectively under COVID-19 epidemic.•Up to 23.9% investigated medical staff ...reported having anxiety or depression symptoms.•Psychological interventions for medical staff should be integrated into the strategies for fighting COVID-19.
It is well known that unexpected pandemic has led to an increase in mental health problems among a variety of populations.
In this study, an online non-probability sample survey was used to anonymously investigate the anxiety and depression symptoms among medical staff under the COVID-19 outbreak. The questionnaire included Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item Scale (GAD-7) and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Factors associated with anxiety and depression symptoms were estimated by logistic regression analysis.
A total of 1090 medical staff were investigated in this study. The estimated self-reported rates of anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms and both of the two were 13.3%, 18.4% and 23.9% respectively. Factors associated with self-reported anxiety symptoms include married status (OR=2.3, 95%CI: 1.2, 4.4), not living alone (OR=0.4, 95%CI: 0.2, 0.7), never confiding their troubles to others (OR=2.2, 95%CI: 1.4, 3.5) and higher stress (OR=14.4, 95%CI: 7.8, 26.4). Factors associated with self-reported depression symptoms include not living alone (OR=0.4, 95%CI: 0.3, 0.7), sometimes/often getting care from neighbours (OR=0.6, 95%CI: 0.4, 0.9), never confiding their troubles to others (OR=2.0, 95%CI: 1.3, 3.0) and higher stress (OR=9.7, 95%CI: 6.2, 15.2).
The study was a non-probability sample survey. Besides, scales used in this study can only identify mental health states.
Under outbreak of COVID-19, self-reported rates of anxiety symptoms and depression symptoms were high in investigated medical staff. Psychological interventions for those at high risk with common mental problems should be integrated into the work plan to fight against the epidemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented challenge for society. Supporting the mental health of medical staff and affiliated healthcare workers (staff) is a critical part of the public health ...response. This paper details the effects on staff and addresses some of the organisational, team and individual considerations for supporting staff (pragmatically) during this pandemic. Leaders at all levels of health care organisations will find this a valuable resource.
In the early stages of the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Hubei, China, the local health-care system was overwhelmed. Physicians and nurses who had no infectious disease expertise ...were recruited to provide care to patients with COVID-19. To our knowledge, no studies on their experiences of combating COVID-19 have been published. We aimed to describe the experiences of these health-care providers in the early stages of the outbreak.
We did a qualitative study using an empirical phenomenological approach. Nurses and physicians were recruited from five COVID-19-designated hospitals in Hubei province using purposive and snowball sampling. They participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews by telephone from Feb 10 to Feb 15, 2020. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Haase's adaptation of Colaizzi's phenomenological method.
We recruited nine nurses and four physicians. Three theme categories emerged from data analysis. The first was “being fully responsible for patients' wellbeing—‘this is my duty’”. Health-care providers volunteered and tried their best to provide care for patients. Nurses had a crucial role in providing intensive care and assisting with activities of daily living. The second category was “challenges of working on COVID-19 wards”. Health-care providers were challenged by working in a totally new context, exhaustion due to heavy workloads and protective gear, the fear of becoming infected and infecting others, feeling powerless to handle patients' conditions, and managing relationships in this stressful situation. The third category was “resilience amid challenges”. Health-care providers identified many sources of social support and used self-management strategies to cope with the situation. They also achieved transcendence from this unique experience.
The intensive work drained health-care providers physically and emotionally. Health-care providers showed their resilience and the spirit of professional dedication to overcome difficulties. Comprehensive support should be provided to safeguard the wellbeing of health-care providers. Regular and intensive training for all health-care providers is necessary to promote preparedness and efficacy in crisis management.
National Key R&D Program of China, Project of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education in China.
COVID‐19 has a significant impact on public health and poses a challenge to medical staffs, especially to front‐line medical staffs who are exposed to and in direct contact with patients. To ...understand the psychological stress status of medical staffs during the outbreak of COVID‐19, random sample questionnaire survey was conducted among 2110 medical staffs and 2158 college students in all provinces of China through a questionnaire, which was compiled and completed through the Questionnaire Star platform relying on Wechat, QQ, and other social software. The differences in psychological stress status of different groups were compared through the analysis of the questionnaire. Results revealed that in all provinces of China, medical staffs scored significantly higher on all items of psychological stress than college students (P < .001). In Wuhan, medical staffs scored significantly higher than college students in all items of psychological stress (P < .001). While among medical staffs, the group in Wuhan area scored significantly higher than the group outside Wuhan on the following items: "Thought of being in danger," "The possibility of self‐illness," "Worrying about family infection" (P < .05), "Poor sleep quality," "Needing psychological guidance," and "Worrying about being infected" (P < .01) in the Psychological Stress Questionnaire, but on the item "Confidence in the victory of the epidemic," the group in Wuhan area scored significantly lower than the group outside Wuhan (P < .05). The emotion, cognition, physical, and mental response of front‐line medical staff showed obvious "exposure effect", which calls for a psychological crisis intervention strategy that can be helpful.
Highlights
The emotion, cognition, physical, and mental response of front‐line medical staff showed obvious “exposure effect,” which calls for a psychological crisis intervention strategy that can be helpful.
This accessible textbook provides a comprehensive resource for healthcare students and professional students studying non-medical prescribing, taking into account the Royal Pharmaceutical Society ...(RPS) competency framework for non-medical prescribing.
Non-Medical Prescribing: A Course Companion includes chapters on the context of non-medical prescribing; pharmacology; professional, legal and ethical issues; psychological influences; working in multidisciplinary teams; working with patients with complex conditions and co-morbidities; understanding antibiotics and resistances; prescription writing; and the role of non-medical prescribing leads. Each chapter acts as a self-contained study module, with key facts and areas highlighted, illustrative clinical cases to link learning to practice, and a self-test quiz.
Designed for professionals from a range of non-medical disciplines including nursing, midwifery, pharmacy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy, this book can be used at both pre- and post-registration level.
To quantify medical staff preferences for providing health education service in hospitals.
This study took medical staff in the department of internal medicine of hospitals in Beijing, China as the ...research subjects, and designed a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to investigate the health education service provision preferences of them. Through various methods, 8 attributes and corresponding levels were determined. An online survey was conducted among the medical staff of the sample hospitals from May to June 2023. Participants’ preferences were analyzed using conditional logit and mixed logit models.
Finally, 831 respondents completed the questionnaire, among which 600 cases passed the consistency test. All the attributes included in this study had an impact on medical staff’ health education service preferences (P < 0.001). The most important one with the greatest impact on the health education service delivery behavior of the respondents was "department working atmosphere-encouraging health education" (β = 4.062, P < 0.001).
In this study, the departmental work atmosphere and performance bonuses emerged as crucial factors influencing the engagement of medical staff in health education work.
Hospitals should prioritize measures to improve the health education working atmosphere in departments to increase the enthusiasm of medical staff to provide services.
•Staff from different level of hospitals had different importance ranking of factors.•All attributes in this study influence preference for providing health education services.•Department atmosphere was the most significant factor in health education service provision.•Taking targeted measures to enhance the motivation of medical staff in providing services is vital.
An outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a public health emergency of international concern and poses a big challenge to medical staff and general public. The aim is to investigate ...psychological impact of COVID-19 epidemic on medical staff in different working posts in China, and to explore the correlation between psychological disorder and the exposure to COVID-19.
A multicenter WeChat-based online survey was conducted among medical staff in China between 26 February and 3 March 2020. Medical staff deployed to Hubei province from other provinces and medical staffs in different posts outside Hubei were selected to represent diverse exposure intensities to the threat of COVID-19. Anxiety, depression, sleep quality, stress and resilience were evaluated using scales including GAD-7, PHQ-9, PSQI, PSS-14, and CD-RISC-10. Latent class analysis was performed to identify potential staff requiring psychological support.
A total of 274 respondents were included, who serving at 4 posts as follows, staff backing Hubei province, isolation wards outside Hubei, fever clinic and infectious disease department, and other departments outside Hubei. The total scores of anxiety, depression, sleep quality and stress were statistically different among groups, meanwhile an increasing tendency of anxiety, depression and sleep quality scores with increasing risk of exposure to COVID-19 was found (p < 0.05). Subsequent post-hoc analysis indicated that the staff backing Hubei had higher scores of anxiety, depression, sleep quality and perceived stress (adjusted p < 0.05). The combined prevalence of anxiety, depression and insomnia of staff backing Hubei reached as high as 38%. Four-class latent class analysis showed 3 categories of population (69.4%) may need psychological support.
High prevalence of anxiety, depression and insomnia exist in medical staff related to COVID-19. The higher the probability and intensity of exposure to COVID-19 patients, the greater the risk that medical staff will suffer from mental disorders, suggesting continuous and proper psychiatric intervention are needed.
Harvey Bluemel makes several excellent points in her Opinion piece.1 The administrative tasks encountered in the medical field are essential and unavoidable components of being a physician, and ...performing these tasks well is a skill that needs to be developed. I offer the following counterpoint, however.
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic represents a once in a century challenge to human healthcare with over 4.5 million cases and over 300,000 deaths thus far. Surgical practice has been significantly ...impacted with all specialties writing guidelines for how to manage during this crisis. All specialties have had to triage the urgency of their daily surgical procedures and consider non-surgical management options where possible. The Pandemic has had ramifications for ways of working, surgical techniques, open vs minimally invasive, theatre workflow, patient and staff safety, training and education. With guidelines specific to each specialty being implemented and followed, surgeons should be able to continue to provide safe and effective care to their patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this comprehensive and up to date review we assess changes to working practices through the lens of each surgical specialty.
•Minimally-invasive surgery should be avoided.•Only emergency surgeries or those where there is a significant risk of disease progression should continue to be performed.•Consent must be altered to include the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
Radiation is an integral part of routine medical practice, but it carries a risk to the health of medical staff. Hence, it should be assessed periodically. The study's goal was to quantify the levels ...of radiation exposure for medical staff at King Faisal Medical Complex (KFMC), Taif City Saudi Arabia, and to assess their radiation protective procedures in practice.
The study looked at the thermoluminescence dosimeters (TLDs) records of 50 medical professionals who were exposed to radiation while working at KFMC from 2019 to 2020 in Taif city, Saudi Arabia. In Riyadh, radiation exposure is read from skin TLDs using Harshaw model 6600 plus detectors. The Excel software was utilized to process the obtained data for calculating effective doses. A questionnaire was also distributed to the medical staff to assess their radiation protection procedures. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 23 was used to analyze the obtained data.
The mean annual effective doses of the medical staff in 2019 and 2020 were determined to be 1.14 mSv and 1.4645 mSv, respectively, with no significant difference in effective doses between males and females in either year. The socio-demographic features of the medical personnel were examined, and the findings revealed that the majority of participants were male radiological technologists. The rate of adherence to radiation protection techniques was 68%, with a normally distributed dispersal. The amount of adherence varied significantly depending on nationality, occupation, and academic qualification.
According to the research, the mean annual effective dosage for medical professionals at KFMC was significantly below the recommended level, indicating satisfactory compliance with the ALARA radiation safety concept.
•The study determined the levels of radiation exposure for medical staff for 50 participants at Taif city, Saudi Arabia.•The results revealed mean annual effective doses for the medical staff were 1.13 and 1.46 mSv in 2019 and 2020 respectively.•The results showed that the level of adherence to radiation protection practices was 68% with mean value of 2.72.•Effective doses for medical personnel two years 2019 and 2020 was well below the dose limit recommended by ICRP.
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