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The psychological impact on an orthopaedic outpatient setting in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, after the coronavirus claimed 4628 lives worldwide. Mental health challenges such as making impossible decisions and working under extreme pressures are expected to be faced by frontl...

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Autores principales: Wong, Khai Cheong, Han, Xinyun Audrey, Tay, Kae Sian, Koh, Suang Bee, Howe, Tet Sen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7422671/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32787965
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13018-020-01862-9
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author Wong, Khai Cheong
Han, Xinyun Audrey
Tay, Kae Sian
Koh, Suang Bee
Howe, Tet Sen
author_facet Wong, Khai Cheong
Han, Xinyun Audrey
Tay, Kae Sian
Koh, Suang Bee
Howe, Tet Sen
author_sort Wong, Khai Cheong
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, after the coronavirus claimed 4628 lives worldwide. Mental health challenges such as making impossible decisions and working under extreme pressures are expected to be faced by frontline healthcare workers who are directly involved in the care of COVID-19 patients. However, we question if significant stress levels might also be observed in a subspecialty musculoskeletal outpatient department, where staff are not first-line care providers of COVID-19 patients. We hypothesize that these healthcare workers also face significant psychological strain, and we aim to objectively determine the prevalence using a validated caregiver strain index. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in outpatient musculoskeletal clinics in a tertiary hospital in Singapore. We collected basic demographic data and used a 13-question tool adapted from the validated Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) to measure psychological strain in these healthcare workers. Participants were divided into 2 groups depending on the level of strain experienced. RESULTS: A total of 62 healthcare workers volunteered for this study. There were 32 participants (51.6%) who had 7 or more positive responses (group 1) and the remaining 30 participants (48.4%) were allocated to group 2. There were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of demographic data. “Work adjustments” (74.2%), “changes in personal plans” (72.6%), and finding it “confining” (72.6%) garnered the most positive responses in the questionnaire. On the other hand, “financial concerns” garnered the least positive responses (21.0%). CONCLUSION: The protracted duration of the COVID-19 outbreak and its resultant prolonged adjustments can have unintended consequences of wearing down healthcare resources otherwise allocated to chronic and elective conditions. Countries should ensure that measures are put in place to safeguard the mental well-being of our healthcare workers to avoid needing another reactive strategy in this battle against COVID-19.
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spelling pubmed-74226712020-08-16 The psychological impact on an orthopaedic outpatient setting in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study Wong, Khai Cheong Han, Xinyun Audrey Tay, Kae Sian Koh, Suang Bee Howe, Tet Sen J Orthop Surg Res Research Article BACKGROUND: World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, after the coronavirus claimed 4628 lives worldwide. Mental health challenges such as making impossible decisions and working under extreme pressures are expected to be faced by frontline healthcare workers who are directly involved in the care of COVID-19 patients. However, we question if significant stress levels might also be observed in a subspecialty musculoskeletal outpatient department, where staff are not first-line care providers of COVID-19 patients. We hypothesize that these healthcare workers also face significant psychological strain, and we aim to objectively determine the prevalence using a validated caregiver strain index. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in outpatient musculoskeletal clinics in a tertiary hospital in Singapore. We collected basic demographic data and used a 13-question tool adapted from the validated Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) to measure psychological strain in these healthcare workers. Participants were divided into 2 groups depending on the level of strain experienced. RESULTS: A total of 62 healthcare workers volunteered for this study. There were 32 participants (51.6%) who had 7 or more positive responses (group 1) and the remaining 30 participants (48.4%) were allocated to group 2. There were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of demographic data. “Work adjustments” (74.2%), “changes in personal plans” (72.6%), and finding it “confining” (72.6%) garnered the most positive responses in the questionnaire. On the other hand, “financial concerns” garnered the least positive responses (21.0%). CONCLUSION: The protracted duration of the COVID-19 outbreak and its resultant prolonged adjustments can have unintended consequences of wearing down healthcare resources otherwise allocated to chronic and elective conditions. Countries should ensure that measures are put in place to safeguard the mental well-being of our healthcare workers to avoid needing another reactive strategy in this battle against COVID-19. BioMed Central 2020-08-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7422671/ /pubmed/32787965 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13018-020-01862-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wong, Khai Cheong
Han, Xinyun Audrey
Tay, Kae Sian
Koh, Suang Bee
Howe, Tet Sen
The psychological impact on an orthopaedic outpatient setting in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study
title The psychological impact on an orthopaedic outpatient setting in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study
title_full The psychological impact on an orthopaedic outpatient setting in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study
title_fullStr The psychological impact on an orthopaedic outpatient setting in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed The psychological impact on an orthopaedic outpatient setting in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study
title_short The psychological impact on an orthopaedic outpatient setting in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study
title_sort psychological impact on an orthopaedic outpatient setting in the early phase of the covid-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7422671/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32787965
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13018-020-01862-9
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