How COVID-19 is harming the mental health of front row workers
In late April a doctor by the name of Lorna Breen died by suicide her story made headlines all around the world Dr. Breen was a New York City emergency room director who reportedly didn't have a history of mental illness but her death sparked conversations about mental health support for frontline workers battling the corona virus pandemic in both Canada and the u.s. one in five people experience some form of mental illness throughout their lifetime and while there are many factors as to why someone may experience mental illness experts are looking into the impact the corona virus is having on frontline workers we are seeing healthcare professionals having to make often life-altering decisions under pressure because things are changing so fast and these can be life-altering and they need to be done quickly a lot of the time and so with that new kind of stress you also see that people are just going to be a little bit more elevated than they usually would be for many frontline workers the hours are long and with physical distancing rules in place these frontline workers are often the only people around COVID patients some who are dying
I think any health coverage they want to do the best job they can do and that isn't just about skills it's about treating the patient as a whole person and that means their families and we recognize that patients come to us with you know families and support words and all kinds of stories you know a narrative about their life and when you can't really when you're just providing the care that you need to provide because you may be understaffed or it's very critical and you don't have that patients family there also to help you know to communicate with them to help support them through the patient's going through I think it feels really bad for many nurses following the death of Dr. Breen many hospitals and organizations began offering more mental health support advice and tips for workers these services include counseling by phone or online cognitive behavior therapy or even self-care tips dr. alana Virgie says some other strategies leaders in hospitals and organizations can offer their frontline workers include making sure they're actually getting sleep are eating properly are staying hydrated and making sure workers get time off these are the systemic things that can be done to make sure that health care professionals mental health is being supported and it was often this feeling that when we are experiencing emotions that we don't like the best thing to do is just push through ignore or try to cover it up with something else but that usually ends up affecting us more in the long run whereas if we just kind of acknowledge what we're feeling and allow it to be we end up being able to tolerate the emotion and to deal with ita lot more effectively Walton says there can be a culture within the health care sector of pushing through and dealing with your emotions later but that's because a frontline workers first priority is the patient they're looking after but over time that takes a toll right and at some point you do have to deal with the emotions and whether it's the grieving or the motions or the frustration the anger the sadness you have these things build up there's always a few patient cases that stay with you for whatever reason and usually it's something you've really learned about yourself and how you need to work as a nurse or as a physician through a really difficult patient case but those are usually like whew right now I would say that many health care workers on the frontline are dealing with case after case after case like this on top of that the usual outlets like going to the gym or even socializing with friends aren't possible right now this puts a toll on our bodies it puts a toll on our minds it puts a toll on our emotions and often in the process we forget how to cope when we used to have single stressors we knew how to get through them but after months and months of going through it the things that used to work maybe me don't do them anymore maybe they don't work anymore and then we're lost we know coping strategies that are going to work for us this also increases the likelihood of substance use and unhelpful coping strategies because those are often the ones that work the fastest not necessarily the most effectively a recent study of more than 1,200 health care professionals in China was conducted and it showed that during the peak of the coronavirus in the country half reported to be depressed forty-five percent said they had anxiety and 34 percent reported insomnia I think for many frontline workers it may be that people just don't really understand well what they're going through and there may be some hesitation to share you know what's going on at work with people it's frightening it's very real and they haven't had time to process it themselves so to come home and say I'm gonna talk about you know my day at work right now what's really happening and how terrified I am they also may feel quite protective.