Interdisciplinary managerial interventions for healthcare workers’ mental health – a review with COVID-19 emphasis

Abstract

Healthcare workers are representatives of occupations that are most exposed to high levels of stress in the work environment. These characteristics of work increase the probability of suffering from mental disorders. One aspect of mental disorder prevention in the workplace is the role of healthcare managers as those people who are responsible for minimizing the negative impact of workrelated stress factors. Their role can be performed by creating effective initiatives supporting workers' mental health. The need to support the implementation of such initiatives has been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the review is to summarize available types of managerial interventions in the field of mental health protection of medical staff, considering the assessment of their prevalence, determinants of effectiveness, and limitations from the perspective of healthcare managers. The article was prepared based on the literature review method and covered publications from original research in English and Polish, published until June 2023 in the following databases: PubMed, Google Scholar, and PsycINFO. In addition to the original research, the review also includes documents developed by international health organizations. The determinants of effective managerial interventions that can be used for the needs of managers and decision-makers in the field of mental health management in the workplace have been presented. The greatest widespread of mental health initiatives concerned the pandemic period, but now the key systemic task should be to maintain the frequency of impacts outside the pandemic period, due to the constant nature of stressors. The determinants of their effectiveness include, among others: incorporating elements of psychological knowledge into the process of educating managers, involving healthcare specialists in the development of programs, and examining the needs of the staff each time at the stage preceding interventions.