Psychological impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome on health workers in a tertiary hospital

Abstract

The outbreak of SARS could be regarded as an acute episode of a bio-disaster, leading to a significantly high rate of psychiatric morbidity.

The Mental Health of Hospital Workers Dealing with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

“…However, once the SARS epidemic was under control (around July, 2003), this study found that only 17.3% of the health care workers had developed mental symptoms. This ratio was far lower than that reported by Chong et al [6] (with participants also coming from southern Taiwan), who mentioned that 75.3% of subjects appeared to have mental health problems during the SARS outbreak (from May to June, 2003). This study also showed that the mental symptoms of the majority of participants obviously lessened, little by little, several months after the SARS epidemic was under control.…”

“…In Taiwan, an investigation of 1,257 health care workers showed that more than 3/4 of the participants felt that their job put them at great risk of exposure to SARS, and therefore worked with a substantial burden. The prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was as high as 75.3%, which was three times that of the general population [6]. …”

Psychological Morbidity, Quality of Life and their Correlations among Military Health Care Workers in Taiwan

“…In the review of previous studies, the prevalence of psychological morbidity in nurses was about 18 to 48.8% 12,[29][30][31][32] ; only one report, from Nigeria, showed lower psychological morbidity rates than our nurse group. The higher morbidity rates among nurses reported in other surveys 13,15,29) may be due to specific work situations or due to different methodology in cutoff points of the GHQ. Therefore, this is a study involving healthcare workers, the gender differences in psychological morbidity usually found between the sexes may disappear as a result of the type of work they do.…”

“…There are few epidemiological studies on the quality of life of health care workers in hospitals, where certain stressors influencing quality of life can be found. These stressors included low autonomy, limited involvement in decision-making, noisy and hot environments, heavy physical load, long work hours, work shifts, exposure to toxins and infectious agents or patients [10][11][12][13][14] . Situations pertaining to the physical workload, death of a patient, and communication problems with physicians and nursing administrators have been ranked most highly stressful 15) .…”

Perception in Relation to a Potential Influenza Pandemic among Healthcare Workers in Japan: Implications for Preparedness

“…Earlier reports have also shown mixed attitudes among healthcare workers toward coping with infectious diseases. For example, during the SARS epidemic, 79% of Taiwanese healthcare workers perceived fear and 37% reported they would accept the risk 22) . Such perceptions may reflect the level of threat perceived by the responders at that time.…”