Loneliness and not living alone is what impacted on the healthcare professional’s mental health during the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain

The present study is aimed at exploring the role of loneliness in the healthcare professionals’ mental health during the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain. A total of 1,421 healthcare professionals who were in contact with at least one positive COVID-19 patient participated in a cross-sectional online surv...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Cabello Salmerón, María, Izquierdo Zarzo, Ana, Leal Leturia, Itziar
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositorio:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/710599
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/710599
https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13260
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:COVID-19
healthcare professionals
loneliness
mental health
Medicina
Descripción
Sumario:The present study is aimed at exploring the role of loneliness in the healthcare professionals’ mental health during the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain. A total of 1,421 healthcare professionals who were in contact with at least one positive COVID-19 patient participated in a cross-sectional online survey from April to June 2020. Mental health was measured with the General Health Questionnaire-12, and loneliness was assessed with the 3-item UCLA Loneliness Scale. More than 80% of participants showed a certain prone to experience mental health problems, and 90% felt that they had not enough workplace protective measures to manage COVID-19 patients. Presence of loneliness was positively related to higher mental health problems after controlling for other covariates. Other factors related to higher mental health problems were a higher COVID-19 risk perception, being in quarantine, checking COVID-19-related news several times a day and having a lower training on managing infectious diseases. Neither living alone, nor supervisor social support, were related to healthcare professionals' mental health. Results suggest that the impact of COVID-19 in terms of mental health in the healthcare professionals could be more related to subjective appraisals of social isolation rather than to be physically alone. There were also a variety of cognitive, behavioural and training-related factors that were associated with the healthcare professionals’ mental health, and that should be potentially managed in the mental healthcare interventions