COVID-19 Pandemic and Frontline healthcare workers well-being

Mental Health of the Healthcare workers is equally important during the pandemic. Mental health issues can be considered as one of the occupational health hazard.

Proper care and attention should be given to the Healthcare workers through platform of support help groups and psychologists to help them with coping the situation. 

Alternatively guided meditation, yoga and other mind-body balance exercises should be included to be done before starting their line of duty. 

The current situation has led to an unprecedented impact on everyone primarily on Frontline Healthcare workers and other essential workers. Apart from long duty hours, fear of getting infected, spreading the disease to their family members, separation from their loved ones, no work-life balance and various other factors which are impacting their wellbeing, STIGMATIZATON of HCWs on the other hand is another contributor to their increased stress levels.

COVID stress scale has various stressors related to the pandemic and these stressors form COVID Stress syndrome. Stigmatization is one of the stressor of the CSS scale thereby making HCWs more vulnerable to COVID Stress syndrome.  Studies in the past have shown that these stressors can led people to high risk of substance abuse. Also, Behavioural immune system is an alarm system wherein individuals show increased monitoring of signs of infection. This can also be equally found in HCWs like the general population thereby causing undue occupational stress and sometimes lead to Obsessive compulsive disorders. All these factors may lead to making HCWs at high risk of substance abuse.

Worldwide we have been witnessing people, governments and various other bodies praising the efforts of HCWs, does that mean it would have a positive impact on reducing the stigmatization or people just applaud HCWs from the safety of their homes. A regular check on the behaviour of HCWs, early diagnosis using COVID Stress scale may prove to be beneficial in preventing HCWs to get into COVID stress syndrome and hence would save them from substance abuse. Apart from targeted behaviour modification strategies for making people adopting preventive measure, there is a need of targeted intervention on preventing stigmatization too.

Interesting read below:

//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7434636/pdf/main.pdf

//pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33660068/

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on health systems in most countries, and in particular, on the mental health and well-being of health workers on the frontlines of pandemic response efforts. The purpose of this article is to provide an evidence-based overview of the adverse mental health impacts on healthcare workers during times of crisis and other challenging working conditions and to highlight the importance of prioritizing and protecting the mental health and well-being of the healthcare workforce, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we provide a broad overview of the elevated risk of stress, burnout, moral injury, depression, trauma, and other mental health challenges among healthcare workers. Second, we consider how public health emergencies exacerbate these concerns, as reflected in emerging research on the negative mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers. Further, we consider potential approaches for overcoming these threats to mental health by exploring the value of practicing self-care strategies, and implementing evidence based interventions and organizational measures to help protect and support the mental health and well-being of the healthcare workforce. Lastly, we highlight systemic changes to empower healthcare workers and protect their mental health and well-being in the long run, and propose policy recommendations to guide healthcare leaders and health systems in this endeavor. This paper acknowledges the stressors, burdens, and psychological needs of the healthcare workforce across health systems and disciplines, and calls for renewed efforts to mitigate these challenges among those working on the frontlines during public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

For wellbeing of healthcare workers the following things should be considered.

Provide them Accomodation And travelling free of cost, timely break for self, ample of time to rest, Stress management techniques /mental health counselling, physical activities to be arranged, and they should get the timely health checkups done. Health insurance should be done. 

They should be kept as top priority in every healthcare benefit, and prevention programme.

unnecessary burden should be reduced and should be paid better. 

And  for citizens- to help and support our healthcare workers, 

every citizen should follow the precautions and get vaccinated. these will surely help our HCWs to a great extent.

Healthcare practitioners are subjected to several stressors in their work that can negatively affect their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. The effect on the professionals' professionalism, quality of care supply, efficiency and general quality of life might be negatively affected by work related stress. Therefore it is essential that these work-related risk factors be identified and mitigated to safeguard health professionals' mental health and well-being. But self-handling could be indispensable for meeting your profession's obligations, workload and demands, and could help healthcare professionals to achieve a better balance or integration of work and spare time – as well as to safeguard their health, well-being and satisfaction with work and overall life.

//www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.679397/full