Anxiety in health personnel in the COVID-19 crisis

The coronavirus pandemic is not only a risk from the point of view of physical illness. In addition, it has increased the risk of developing psychological health problems, both due to the implications of exposure to COVID-19 and its impact on the economy and lifestyle of women people.

However, one of the most important aspects of this COVID-19 crisis context is that it does not affect everyone equally. One of the groups most affected by the virus and its disease is that of health professionals, who have been exposed to a very complicated work situation for several weeks in a row, marked by stress and anxiety.

Precisely about that we are going to talk in this article, about the Psychological alterations linked to anxiety in physicians, nursing personnel and professions associated with health in general.

• Related article: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

How does anxiety arise?

First of all, let's see what is the nature of the anxiety developed by a large part of the health personnel during the coronavirus crisis, to understand what problem it is. To do this, you have to know

distinguish between anxiety as a psychological alteration and anxiety as a psychological adaptation mechanism.

Although when thinking about what anxiety implies, all the discomfort that it usually generates comes to mind, the truth is that it is not negative in itself. In fact, the fact that it is present in most animals already gives us a clue that it is very useful.

The reason is that when we are anxious, we usually adopt a greater predisposition to be safe and avoid unnecessary harm and trouble. For example, these days anxiety is part of what has led millions of people to adopt social distancing and infection prevention measures.

However, there are cases in which the anxiety becomes so extreme that it becomes an added problem in itself, something that we must learn to manage through conscious efforts. And when this is just with the need to attend responsibilities as important as those you have healthcare personnel in a hospital, the mixture can generate a high level of wear and tear psychological.

Manifestations of anxiety in health personnel in the COVID-19 crisis

Healthcare personnel who have been involved in ensuring the well-being of patients and treating them in the best possible way during the COVID-19 crisis has been, almost overnight, faced with the need to give the most of his work capacity, even without having sufficient material resources.

To some extent, the anxiety is justified by the work situation, but in certain cases this level of emotional disturbance remains practically all day with high levels of intensity, threatening not to disappear or to the drop in cases of contagion. It is true that it is not a solely psychological problem, given that their conditions at work are very harsh, but we cannot deny that the way you learn to manage your emotions plays an important role.

Now... how are anxiety problems reflected in health personnel in times of the coronavirus? Let's look at a summary of your symptoms.

1. Irritability and proneness to anger

Many healthcare professionals experience anxiety as something that drains their patience; not because they consciously believe that there are reasons to be angry with their surroundings, but because of fatigue emotional problem of constantly having to deal with urgent problems of great importance to patients. Thus, it is relatively common for them to be frustrated and more inclined to have arguments or outbursts of anger even in the domestic sphere, with all the problems that this entails.

2. Rumination and feelings of guilt

When you work with people who depend totally or almost totally on your work every day, it is easier to end up with feelings of guilt. Thoughts about what could have been done and what was not done, painful memories that emerge in consciousness over and over again... They are characteristic of a phenomenon known as psychological rumination, and that is typical of anxiety problems.

Basically, the person who undergoes psychological rumination has problems to “stop thinking about” an idea that causes discomfort or whose contents are disturbing in some way.

• You may be interested: "Rumination: the annoying vicious circle of thought"

3. Problems in future episodic thought processing

It seems that people who suffer from generalized anxiety have problems managing psychological processes based on future episodic thinking, that is, predictions about what it will happen.

Specifically, these imaginative-based mental representations are less vivid than in other people, and are biased towards pessimism. In this way, it is easier to believe that nothing will change for the better, which contributes to the person not trying to address her problems in those aspects that are under her control.

4. Trouble sleeping

Sleep disturbances are very common among those who suffer from anxiety. This is very remarkable in the case of health personnel, because the lack of rest makes them work worse, exposing them even more to problems.

5. Emotional fatigue

As a result of all the above, the emotional fatigue that health professionals develop mixed with physical fatigue from working under pressure.