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Physiological parameters of mental health predict the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms in physicians treating COVID-19 patients

Lack of established knowledge and treatment strategies, and change in work environment, may altogether critically affect the mental health and functioning of physicians treating COVID-19 patients. Thus, we examined whether treating COVID-19 patients affect the physicians’ mental health differently c...

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Autores principales: Dolev, T., Zubedat, S., Brand, Z., Bloch, B., Mader, E., Blondheim, O., Avital, A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7957277/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33723233
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01299-6
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author Dolev, T.
Zubedat, S.
Brand, Z.
Bloch, B.
Mader, E.
Blondheim, O.
Avital, A.
author_facet Dolev, T.
Zubedat, S.
Brand, Z.
Bloch, B.
Mader, E.
Blondheim, O.
Avital, A.
author_sort Dolev, T.
collection PubMed
description Lack of established knowledge and treatment strategies, and change in work environment, may altogether critically affect the mental health and functioning of physicians treating COVID-19 patients. Thus, we examined whether treating COVID-19 patients affect the physicians’ mental health differently compared with physicians treating non-COVID-19 patients. In this cohort study, an association was blindly computed between physiologically measured anxiety and attention vigilance (collected from 1 May 2014 to 31 May 31 2016) and self-reports of anxiety, mental health aspects, and sleep quality (collected from 20 April to 30 June 2020, and analyzed from 1 July to 1 September 2020), of 91 physicians treating COVID-19 or non-COVID-19 patients. As a priori hypothesized, physicians treating COVID-19 patients showed a relative elevation in both physiological measures of anxiety (95% CI: 2317.69–2453.44 versus 1982.32–2068.46; P < 0.001) and attention vigilance (95% CI: 29.85–34.97 versus 22.84–26.61; P < 0.001), compared with their colleagues treating non-COVID-19 patients. At least 3 months into the pandemic, physicians treating COVID-19 patients reported high anxiety and low quality of sleep. Machine learning showed clustering to the COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 subgroups with a high correlation mainly between physiological and self-reported anxiety, and between physiologically measured anxiety and sleep duration. To conclude, the pattern of attention vigilance, heightened anxiety, and reduced sleep quality findings point the need for mental intervention aimed at those physicians susceptible to develop post-traumatic stress symptoms, owing to the consequences of fighting at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-79572772021-03-15 Physiological parameters of mental health predict the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms in physicians treating COVID-19 patients Dolev, T. Zubedat, S. Brand, Z. Bloch, B. Mader, E. Blondheim, O. Avital, A. Transl Psychiatry Article Lack of established knowledge and treatment strategies, and change in work environment, may altogether critically affect the mental health and functioning of physicians treating COVID-19 patients. Thus, we examined whether treating COVID-19 patients affect the physicians’ mental health differently compared with physicians treating non-COVID-19 patients. In this cohort study, an association was blindly computed between physiologically measured anxiety and attention vigilance (collected from 1 May 2014 to 31 May 31 2016) and self-reports of anxiety, mental health aspects, and sleep quality (collected from 20 April to 30 June 2020, and analyzed from 1 July to 1 September 2020), of 91 physicians treating COVID-19 or non-COVID-19 patients. As a priori hypothesized, physicians treating COVID-19 patients showed a relative elevation in both physiological measures of anxiety (95% CI: 2317.69–2453.44 versus 1982.32–2068.46; P < 0.001) and attention vigilance (95% CI: 29.85–34.97 versus 22.84–26.61; P < 0.001), compared with their colleagues treating non-COVID-19 patients. At least 3 months into the pandemic, physicians treating COVID-19 patients reported high anxiety and low quality of sleep. Machine learning showed clustering to the COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 subgroups with a high correlation mainly between physiological and self-reported anxiety, and between physiologically measured anxiety and sleep duration. To conclude, the pattern of attention vigilance, heightened anxiety, and reduced sleep quality findings point the need for mental intervention aimed at those physicians susceptible to develop post-traumatic stress symptoms, owing to the consequences of fighting at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC7957277/ /pubmed/33723233 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01299-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This 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 license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license 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 license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Dolev, T.
Zubedat, S.
Brand, Z.
Bloch, B.
Mader, E.
Blondheim, O.
Avital, A.
Physiological parameters of mental health predict the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms in physicians treating COVID-19 patients
title Physiological parameters of mental health predict the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms in physicians treating COVID-19 patients
title_full Physiological parameters of mental health predict the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms in physicians treating COVID-19 patients
title_fullStr Physiological parameters of mental health predict the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms in physicians treating COVID-19 patients
title_full_unstemmed Physiological parameters of mental health predict the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms in physicians treating COVID-19 patients
title_short Physiological parameters of mental health predict the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms in physicians treating COVID-19 patients
title_sort physiological parameters of mental health predict the emergence of post-traumatic stress symptoms in physicians treating covid-19 patients
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7957277/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33723233
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01299-6
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