Cited by 457COVID-19 and Mental HealthHealthcare professionals’ stress and burnoutOccupational Health and Burnout

Les professionnels de santé face à la pandémie de la maladie à coronavirus (COVID-19) : quels risques pour leur santé mentale ?

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El-Hage, W., Hingray, C., Lemogne, C., Yrondi, A., Brunault, P., Bienvenu, T., Etain, B., Paquet, C. +12 more·2020·L'Encéphale

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused major sanitary crisis worldwide. Half of the world has been placed in quarantine. In France, this large-scale health crisis urgently triggered the restructuring and reorganization of health service delivery to support emergency services, medical intensive care units and continuing care units. Health professionals mobilized all their resources to provide emergency aid in a general climate of uncertainty. Concerns about the mental health, psychological adjustment, and recovery of health care workers treating and caring for patients with COVID-19 are now arising. The goal of the present article is to provide up-to-date information on potential mental health risks associated with exposure of health professionals to the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Authors performed a narrative review identifying relevant results in the scientific and medical literature considering previous epidemics of 2003 (SARS-CoV-1) and 2009 (H1N1) with the more recent data about the COVID-19 pandemic. We highlighted most relevant data concerning the disease characteristics, the organizational factors and personal factors that may contribute to developing psychological distress and other mental health symptoms. RESULTS: The disease characteristics of the current COVID-19 pandemic provoked a generalized climate of wariness and uncertainty, particularly among health professionals, due to a range of causes such as the rapid spread of COVID-19, the severity of symptoms it can cause in a segment of infected individuals, the lack of knowledge of the disease, and deaths among health professionals. Stress may also be caused by organizational factors, such as depletion of personal protection equipment, concerns about not being able to provide competent care if deployed to new area, concerns about rapidly changing information, lack of access to up-to-date information and communication, lack of specific drugs, the shortage of ventilators and intensive care unit beds necessary to care for the surge of critically ill patients, and significant change in their daily social and family life. Further risk factors have been identified, including feelings of being inadequately supported, concerns about health of self, fear of taking home infection to family members or others, and not having rapid access to testing through occupational health if needed, being isolated, feelings of uncertainty and social stigmatization, overwhelming workload, or insecure attachment. Additionally, we discussed positive social and organizational factors that contribute to enhance resilience in the face of the pandemic. There is a consensus in all the relevant literature that health care professionals are at an increased risk of high levels of stress, anxiety, depression, burnout, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder, which could have long-term psychological implications. CONCLUSIONS: In the long run, this tragic health crisis should significantly enhance our understanding of the mental health risk factors among the health care professionals facing the COVID-19 pandemic. Reporting information such as this is essential to plan future prevention strategies. Protecting health care professionals is indeed an important component of public health measures to address large-scale health crisis. Thus, interventions to promote mental well-being in health care professionals exposed to COVID-19 need to be immediately implemented, and to strengthen prevention and response strategies by training health care professionals on mental help and crisis management.

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Crossref · 10.1016/j.encep.2020.04.008

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  • As growing numbers of nurses, physicians, and other care givers drop out due to exhaustion, illness, or burnout, stress on the remaining staff will increase, as already seen in structurally weaker regions.

    “With a growing number of nurses, physicians and other care givers dropping out of the system due to exhaustion, bodily or mental illness or burn-out, the stress on the remaining will even increase as already can be seen in structurally weaker regions (El-Hage et al. 2020; Petzold et al. 2020).”

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  1. [15]OCDE Lits d’hôpitaux [Internet] 2018 https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/content/data/9b82df80-fr

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Authors
El-Hage, W., Hingray, C., Lemogne, C., Yrondi, A., Brunault, P., Bienvenu, T., Etain, B., Paquet, C., Gohier, B., Bennabi, D., Birmes, P., Sauvaget, A., Fakra, E., Prieto, N., Bulteau, S., Vidailhet, P., Camus, V., Leboyer, M., Krebs, M.-O., & Aouizerate, B.
Affiliations
  • Centre Hospitalier Régional et Universitaire de Nancy (FR)
  • Inserm (FR)
  • Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (FR)
  • Université de Tours (FR)
  • Université de Bordeaux (FR)
  • Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire (FR)
  • Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Besançon (FR)
  • Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nantes (FR)
  • Hospices Civils de Lyon (FR)
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
Venue
L'Encéphale
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-06
Volume
46
Issue
3
Pages
S73-S80
ISSN
0013-7006 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3020369783
Cited by
457
References
40
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 71 · 2022: 142 · 2021: 128 · 2020: 58
FWCI
39.86
Type
journal article
Language
fr
Open access
Locations
  • L Encéphale (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
Funders
  • AstraZeneca
  • Sanofi
  • Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-16-IDEX-0007)
  • Eisai
  • Servier
  • H. Lundbeck A/S
  • Chugai Pharmaceutical
  • Cilag
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Burnout
Keywords
COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers, mental health, psychological distress, burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, occupational stress, resilience, SARS-CoV-1, H1N1, personal protective equipment shortage, workload, social stigma, occupational health support, family life disruption, occupational exposure to infection, intensive care unit
MeSH terms
Betacoronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adaptation, Psychological, Anxiety, Attitude of Health Personnel, Burnout, Professional, Delivery of Health Care, Depression, France, Health Workforce, Health Personnel, Helplessness, Learned, Humans, Occupational Diseases, Pneumonia, Viral, Protective Devices, Risk Factors, Social Support, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Suicide, Work Schedule Tolerance, Workload, Behavior, Addictive, Infectious Disease Transmission, Patient-to-Professional, Coronavirus Infections, Uncertainty, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Resilience, Psychological, Pandemics, Influenza Pandemic, 1918-1919

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