Psychological Measures may Help Cope With Mental Strain from COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a severe strain among health care professionals and thereby mandates the measures to understand protective factors that help cope with this strain.

COVID-19 has taken a toll on the mental health of every individual. The health care workers from physicians, nursing staff, medical technical assistants, to pastoral workers in hospitals are not spared either.

The pandemic has posed a severe strain among these professionals and a study at the University of Bonn showcases protective factors to help them cope with this strain as published in the journal PLOS ONE.

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‘The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a severe strain among health care professionals. The study derives a conclusion on how people should handle crises like the Covid-19 pandemic through protective factors that help cope with this strain.’

The study team conducted an online survey for more than 4,300health care employees at the University Hospitals Bonn, Erlangen, Ulm, Dresden, and Cologne, and many other hospitals from April to July last year (during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic) in Germany.

The information was also collected on three possible “resilience factors”, that protect against mental consequences of stress – social support, religiosity, and sense of coherence(perceived meaning and challenges of life).

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It was found that more than 20% of the respondents in each case stated that they had symptoms of depression or anxiety to an extent requiring treatment. The exact scenario of these people before the pandemic was unknown.

“However, the values found are higher than in earlier studies among physicians and nursing staff, so we can assume there has been an increase during the pandemic. While, during normal times, physicians and nurses display higher mental strain than the rest of the population, they actually had lower anxiety values during the pandemic in our survey. This naturally makes us curious about possible protective factors,” says Prof. Dr. Franziska Geiser, Director of the Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at University Hospital Bonn.

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The study states that the greatest mental consequences of the pandemic were reported among the medical technical assistants. However the exact cause was unknown. Even pastoral workers stated an increase in stress due to the pandemic, but comparatively had a better-pronounced sense of coherence and fewest symptoms of anxiety and depression.

However, the study doesn’t derive any premature conclusions from the findings. It rather highlights the important conclusions on how people should handle crises like the Covid-19 pandemic in the future.

“The more complex the situation, the better we need to communicate. Uncertainties and also contradictions, such as with regard to protective measures or treatment processes, are unavoidable in a new situation like the pandemic. The better it is explained to employees why this is the case and the more personal meaning they experience in their work, the better they can handle it. Timely information is therefore essential. It is important to enter into a dialogue that also allows for questions and responses to concerns,” says Geiser.

Source-Medindia