Use of Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback to Reduce the Psychological Burden of Frontline Healthcare Professionals Against COVID-19

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Juan-Pablo Aristizabal¹  Raphael Navegantes²  Eline Melo³  Antonio Pereira, Jr.² 

[1] Graduate Program in Neuroscience and Behavior, Federal University of Pará;Graduate Program in Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Pará;Graduate Program in Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Federal University of Pará

关键词: COVID-19;    biofeeback;    heart-rate variability (HRV);    healthcare personnel;    mental health;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.572191

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Fear of getting infected and infecting other people, feeling responsible for the physical and mentalwell-being of their patients, working in a novel and unpredictable context subject to work overloadand shortage of personal protective equipment are just a few of the difficult situations that frontlinehealthcare professionals are facing in the ongoing fight against COVID-19 (Figure 1A) (Liu et al.,2020). When this experience is superimposed on the typical baseline stressors of the professionsuch as low morale and low wages, it can contribute to increasing the burden of mental healthproblems experienced by healthcare professionals during the pandemic and will probably persisteven after the COVID-19 crisis has passed. According to Lai et al. (2020), of 1,257 health workersinvolved with the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 patients who were surveyed in China,a considerable proportion experienced symptoms of anxiety (44%), depression (50%), insomnia(34%), and general distress (71%). A similar study carried out in Italy points to the same results:out of 1,379 health professionals surveyed, a high proportion presented symptoms associated withposttraumatic stress disorder (49%), major depressive disorder (25%), anxiety (20%), insomnia(8%), and perceived stress (22%) (Rossi et al., 2020). Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), inparticular, though commonly linked with war veterans, is expected to have a surge of occurrences infrontline health professionals after the pandemic (Dutheil et al., 2020). This adds to the realizationthat both during and after a pandemic, the number of people affected in their mental health tendto be greater than the number of people affected by the infection itself (Reardon, 2015). HIV,Ebola, Zika, H1N1, SARS, and MERS are just a few recent examples of pandemic diseases withsuch characteristics (Kisely et al., 2020; Ornell et al., 2020).

【 授权许可】

CC BY