Longitudinal assessment and determinants of short-term and longer-term psychological distress in a sample of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec, Canada

Frontiers in Psychiatry

Psychiatry

Nicolas Bergeron¹  Filippo Rapisarda²  Stéphane Guay³  Steve Geoffrion⁴  Marie-Michèle Dufour⁵ 

[1] Département de psychiatrie et d'addictologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada;Research Centre, Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada;Research Centre, Institut universitaire en sant9́ mentale de Montréal (IUSMM), Montreal, QC, Canada;Research Centre, Institut universitaire en sant9́ mentale de Montréal (IUSMM), Montreal, QC, Canada;Département de psychiatrie et d'addictologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada;École de criminologie, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada;Research Centre, Institut universitaire en sant9́ mentale de Montréal (IUSMM), Montreal, QC, Canada;École de psychoéducation, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada;École de psychoéducation, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada;

关键词: psychological distress;    COVID-19;    healthcare workers (HCWs);    depression;    anxiety;    post-traumatic stress;    risk factors;    intensive longitudinal assessment;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1112184

 received in 2022-11-30, accepted in 2023-03-27,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

IntroductionPrevious research has demonstrated the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic emergency on the wellbeing of healthcare workers. However, few research contributions reported a longitudinal evaluation of psychological distress and examined determinants of its duration and course over time. The present study aims to explore the impact of the pandemic emergency on HCWs mental health by adopting a longitudinal design and assessing mental health as combination of overlapping clinical symptoms (post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety).MethodsData were collected weekly through a mobile application during and after the first wave of COVID-19 in the province of Quebec, Canada, in 2020. Analysis was conducted on a final sample of 382 participants. Participants were grouped into “resilient” (RES) if they did not manifest clinical-level psychological distress during monitoring, “short-term distress” (STD) if distress exceeded the clinical threshold for 1–3 weeks, and longer-term distress (LTD) if it occurred for four or more weeks, even if not consecutively. Descriptive statistics for all variables were computed for each subgroup (RES, STD and LTD), and pairwise comparisons between each group for every descriptive variable were made using chi square statistics for categorical variables and t-test for continuous variables. Predictors of distress groups (STD and LTD vs RES) were assessed running multinomial hierarchical logistic regression models.ResultsIn our sample, almost two third (59.4%) HCWs did not manifest moderate or severe distress during the monitoring time. Short-term distress, mostly post-traumatic symptoms that lasted for less than 4 weeks, were the most common distress response, affecting almost one third of participants. Longer psychological distress occurred only in a smaller percentage (12.6%) of cases, as a combination of severe posttraumatic, depressive and anxiety symptoms. Perceived occupational stress was the most significant risk factor; moreover individual, peritraumatic work and family risk and protective factors, were likely to significantly affect the stress response.DiscussionResults tend to provide a more complex and resiliency-oriented representation of psychological distress compared to previous cross-sectional studies, but are in line with stress response studies. Findings allow us to better describe the profiles of distress response in STD and LTD groups. Participants that manifest short term distress experience acute stress reaction in which the interplay between personal, family and professional life events is associated with the stress response. Conversely, longer term distress response in HCWs presents a more complex mental health condition with an higher level of impairment and support needs compared to participants with short-term distress.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Rapisarda, Bergeron, Dufour, Guay and Geoffrion.