Efectos sobre la salud mental del personal de cuidado de la salud, derivados de la atención de pacientes con COVID-19: Revisión de alcance

Abstract

Introduction: The pandemic caused by the SARS-COV 2 virus, generated alterations in the labor and social dynamics of health personnel, for which pathologies related to mental illnesses increased. Objective: To identify the scientific evidence on mental health problems of front-line healthcare workers for confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients during January 2020 and April 2022. Methods: A scoping review was carried out, using guidelines from the Cochrane Group. Two reviewers independently screened titles, abstracts, and full texts. The PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews was used together with the JBI scales to assess the quality of the articles found. Population: Frontline health workers, who care for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. Results: 26 studies were found that met the criteria: 7 systematic reviews and 19 cross-sectional studies; depression (19 articles), anxiety (22 articles), stress (15 articles), sleep disorders (16 articles), eating disorders (3 articles), and burnout (10 articles). Records were found in different countries such as Spain, Iran, China, the USA, Vietnam, and Kenya among others. Conclusions: women, and nursing staff, were the ones who presented the greatest alterations in mental health during the pandemic. Among the risk factors are long work days, permanent use of PPE, the volume of patients, direct exposure to the virus, little social support, institutional insufficiency towards personal protection, little knowledge about the management of the disease, and medical/psychiatric history.