Manejo emocional de la crisis sanitaria ante el coronavirus: una revisión narrativa

OBJECTIVE: To make a synthesis of the available scientific evidence in the emotional management of the declared health crisis in the face of coronavirus. METHODS: A bibliographic search was made, without date limit, in Medline, CINAHL®, PsycINFO®, Scopus and Web of Science™ databases using the following keywords “emotional management”, “health crisis” and “health crisis response”. Initially, 73 studies were identified and, after selecting them according to eligibility criteria, 10 were included. RESULTS: The main recommendations based on the available evidence indicate emotional management measures such as offering support groups to professionals, ensuring their social non-discrimination, strengthening their confidence and control capacity through training actions, as well as reinforcing the recognition of nurses by the community. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The accumulated evidence comes from experience with previous outbreaks of SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV. Stress was the most studied aspect, concerning issues such as social stigma, professionalism, intention to care, burnout, ethical conflicts, anxiety, depression or guilt. The emotional management of health crises in the face of the coronavirus requires an individual, collective, social and institutional strategy to reinforce security on all fronts and reduce fear through effective control measures using sufficient and adequate material and human resources.