Faced with Covid-19, many caregivers are suffering from psychological disorders

At the forefront of caring for patients with Covid-19, healthcare professionals are also responsible for psychological disorders. “Outside the pandemic, caregivers are more at risk than the general population of having mental disorders, being underdiagnosed and under-treated,” wrote psychiatrists in the journal in April The brain. “This vulnerability is explained by the high level of stress in these professions, confronted with suffering and death”, specifies psychiatrist Coraline Hingray (CHU de Nancy), co-author of the article.

The few studies carried out during the first wave of the epidemic confirm the strong impact on caregivers. A French survey conducted by online questionnaires, among a thousand professionals working in 21 intensive care units, found symptoms of anxiety in more than half (50.4%) and depression in almost one in three (30.4%) .

Signs of “peritraumatic dissociation” (feeling disconnected from reality, being on autopilot, etc.), which are risk factors for secondary PTSD, were present in 32% of these professionals. . Nurses and health care professionals were the professionals most often concerned.

See if the signs persist over time

Elie Azoulay (Saint-Louis hospital, Paris), first author of the article published on 31 August in American Journal of respiratory and critical care medicine, and colleagues identified six determinants of these symptoms: fear of being infected, inability to rest, inability to care for family, cope with difficult emotions, regret for restrictions in political visits, and testimony of hasty end-of-life decisions.

Another French online survey, which was attended by a thousand caregivers (including 838 women), mostly working in public hospitals, found a very high rate of post-traumatic symptoms (57.8%) and burns. -out (from 26% to 41%). This work, coordinated by psychiatrist Wissam El-Hage (CHU de Tours), is being published. To assess whether these short-term signs persist over time, the team is launching a new research project, Hard-Covid-19, with a cohort of 3,000 professionals working in Covid-19 units. They will be followed for a year.

The goal will be to identify the signs of psychological distress and to evaluate the effects of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a therapy of “desensitization and reprogramming through eye movement”, validated in psychotraumas and in some depressions.