Diseases of Burnout during the Pandemic of the New Corona Virus in Intensive Care Physicians and Its Impact on Serving the Population: A Descriptive Bibliographic Review

Abstract

The mental health issue during the COVID-19 pandemic must consider different populations: doctors / health professionals; general population and patients with mental disorders. When analyzing the stress-generating environment, such as intensive care units and emergencies, one must keep in mind the great demand for work and overload of professionals who are in this current pandemic scenario. Thus, this study aims to review the literature on the problems arising from the Burnout Syndrome in intensive care physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study constitutes a descriptive bibliographic review on information about the main mental health complications of intensive care physicians directly involved in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. The searches were performed in bibliographic databases Medline, Embase, Pubmed and Central, after the re-reading of each article, the data of interest were extracted and analyzed in a descriptive way for the composition of this work. Among the factors that modify the working environment of intensive care physicians working in the front line to combat COVID-19, are: limited hospital resources, threat of exposure to the virus as an additional occupational risk, longer shifts, disturbed sleep patterns, subsequent high dilemmas regarding duties with the patient versus fear of exposure to family members, increased workload, increased physical and mental fatigue, stress, anxiety and physical exhaustion. That said, measures must be taken to support intensive care groups in this phase of global public health. The measures include psychological counseling, organization of the workday, provision of personal protective equipment and training on safety measures. The present review showed evidence of how accentuated the cases of burnout and other emotional manifestations related to work stress worsened with the pandemic of COVID-19. Such emotional conditions have a negative impact on the care of patients undergoing intensive care units, as work stress causes illness, low motivation, unproductiveness and less self-confidence in their own work skills.

The Quantum State of Physicians

“…The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are being written in real time. 9 We have observed increases in depression, anxiety, suicides, substance abuse, and all other forms of psychological maladies in physicians. Most physicians, by now, will have been vaccinated.…”