Psychological distress and trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic: survey of doctors practising anaesthesia, intensive care medicine, and emergency medicine in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland

Abstract

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The COVID-19 Clinician Cohort (CoCCo) Study: Empirically Grounded Recommendations for Forward-Facing Psychological Care of Frontline Doctors

“…Of the 346 CERA [1,27,28] participants who gave consent to be contacted for follow-on studies, 44 consented to interview (12.7%), and 36 were contacted to take part, as per our sampling frame requirements. Five people who consented were contacted for an interview but did not respond.…”

“…The COVID-19 Clinicians Cohort (CoCCo) study is a follow-on study from the 'COVID-19 Emergency Response Assessment', also known as CERA (IRAS: 281944) [1,[27][28][29]. CERA is a five-phase longitudinal study which sought to examine the prevalence and nature of distress in frontline doctors during the first wave (Spring 2020) and second wave (Winter 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic [1,[27][28][29].…”

“…Participants in the CERA study completed quantitative measures of psychological distress, a demographic questionnaire and further questions pertaining to personal and professional characteristics (see CERA study for further details [1,27,28]). From the CERA study battery of measures, data relating to gender, specialty, ethnicity (individual demographic items), and traumatic stress (Impact of Events Scale-Revised, IES-R) were extracted to select a purposive sample for the CoCCo study (see Section 2.2).…”

“…Of those who consented to participate, a purposive sample of doctors was selected for maximum variation on four characteristics: gender, specialty, IES-R score, and ethnicity. These factors have been associated with higher levels of traumatic stress [1,2,27,28,[33][34][35]. Those with IES-R scores 24 or above (indicating clinical levels of distress) were eligible to take part, as these doctors were more likely to have experience of psychological distress and demonstrate care needs.…”

“…The psychological impact of Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on frontline doctors has been well documented. With up to 54% experiencing clinical levels of psychological distress [1], many report being affected by trauma symptoms, fears of contamination, moral injury, disruption of normal supportive structures, and work pressure [2][3][4][5]. These factors are associated with long-term psychological sequelae [6,7].…”