Mental Health Concerns of Frontline Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The current COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a significant impact on the mental health of frontline workers worldwide. Currently there are limited published studies addressing mental health issues in frontline workers. The objective of this scoping review is to examine the range of existing global literature on mental health issues reported in frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and to understand what mitigating factors exist.
 
 METHODS: The scoping review was guided by the Levac Colquhoun and O’Brien’s adapted version of Arkey and O’Malley’s framework. We performed a comprehensive search of three databases, Pubmed, APA PsychINFO, and CINAHL, identifying 684 studies. In total, 16 original studies and 4 letters to editors were included in this review.
 
 RESULTS: Of the original studies, 13 were published in China, and the remaining 3 in Italy, Turkey, and Iraq; all letters to editors were published in China. Sources of stress reported in frontline workers across studies included direct contact with COVID-19 patients, isolation, putting loved ones at risk, facing life and death decision making with COVID-19 patients, uncertainty with COVID-19 disease control, limited personal protective equipment, time spent thinking about COVID-19, limited staff/resources/pay, burnout, and stigma. Mental health symptoms and outcomes reported in frontline workers were fear, stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, burnout, and psychological distress.
 
 CONCLUSION: Findings demonstrate the immediate need to increase mental health awareness and resources at an individual and system wide level. Mental health programs need to be catered towards each unique workplace to provide the necessary resources for frontline workers.

A qualitative analysis of psychosocial stressors and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on frontline healthcare personnel in the United States

“…HCP in the current study, most of whom were seasoned nurses, expressed negative emotional and physical health sequelae of work stress. They described symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress and noted the somatic manifestations, including disordered sleep, heart palpitations, panic attacks, migraines, and body aches, all of which reverberated with findings from existing studies ( Spoorthy, Pratapa, & Mahant, 2020 ; Sritharan, Jegathesan, Vimaleswaran, & Sritharan, 2020 ; Vizheh et al, 2020 ). Exhaustion, anger and frustration were common.…”

Stigmatization from Work-Related COVID-19 Exposure: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis

“…Recently, a large number of systematic reviews investigating the psychological impact of work-related COVID-19 exposure such as stigmatization have been published. However, these reviews only include no or very few original studies related to COVID-19 [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Thus far, a systematic review of the literature on work-related stigmatization focussing on COVID-19 is missing.…”

Oncology Healthcare Professionals’ Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This fifth wave of the pandemic and its reverberating effects on all medical specialties coincided with my (Granek) project putting together this Special Issue for Current Oncology focused on the well-being of healthcare professionals (HCPs) in oncology. While a lot has been written about the mental health of front-line workers caring for patients with COVID-19 in hospitals and other acute care settings [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ], less has been written about the oncology workforce during this time. As such, the focus of this review paper is on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on oncology HCPs’ mental health.…”