“Contemplative interventions can substantively improve posttraumatic growth. This may be particularly relevant for coping with COVID pandemic stress among nurses on the frontlines and for healthcare leaders seeking to strengthen psychological support within their teams and reform the workplace environment”
Clinicians caring for Covid-19 patients have shown multiple signs of stress including anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance.1 Predictors of these adverse effects include young age, low work experience, female gender, heavy workload, working in unsafe settings, and lack of training and social support.2
Issues in COVID-19 care that may provoke these problems include “limited information about COVID-19, unpredictable tasks and challenging practices, insufficient support, concerns about family, and emotional and psychological stress”3, as well as “working in an isolated environment, concerns about personal protective equipment shortage and usage, physical and emotional exhaustion, intensive workload, fear of being infected, and insufficient work experiences with COVID-19.”4
Fang, J., Liu, Y. T., Lee, E. Y., & Yadav, K. (2020). Telehealth Solutions for In-hospital Communication with Patients Under Isolation During COVID-19. The western journal of emergency medicine, 21(4), 801–806. https://doi.org/10.5811/westjem.2020.5.48165
Reengineering the patient’s environment: Establishment of a “Red Box” to improve communications with patients on isolation precautions. (2019). American Journal of Infection Control : Applied Epidemiology in Health Care Settings and the Community, 47(3), 264.
Communication strategies to mitigate fear and suffering among COVID-19 patients isolated in the ICU and their families. (2020). Heart & Lung., 49(4), 344.
Fan, P., Aloweni, F., Lim, S. H., Ang, S. Y., Perera, K., Quek, A. H., Quek, H., & Ayre, T. C. (2020). Needs and concerns of patients in isolation care units – learnings from COVID-19: A reflection. World journal of clinical cases, 8(10), 1763–1766. https://doi.org/10.12998/wjcc.v8.i10.1763
McNairy, M., Bullington, B., & Bloom-Feshbach, K. (2020). Searching for Human Connectedness During COVID-19. Journal of general internal medicine, 1–2. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-020-06082-9
Vilendrer, S., Patel, B., Chadwick, W., Hwa, M., Asch, S., Pageler, N., Ramdeo, R., Saliba-Gustafsson, E. A., Strong, P., & Sharp, C. (2020). Rapid Deployment of Inpatient Telemedicine In Response to COVID-19 Across Three Health Systems. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, 27(7), 1102–1109. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa077
Evidence Matters 