Dynamics of the mental condition among medical workers from the Volgograd region providing medical are to patients with new coronavirus infection COVID-19

Relevance. The COVID-19 pandemic is a major challenge to the global healthcare system. In the works of domestic and foreign authors, attention is focused on the need to provide psychological support to physicians in order to reduce the risks of professional burnout and emotional maladaptation.

Intention – to assess the mental state of the medical staff of infectious disease hospitals in the Volgograd region in dynamics, to identify targets for psycho-correction and to evaluate the effectiveness of organizational measures for psycho-prophylactics in medical organizations converted into infectious disease hospitals.

Methodology. Presented are materials from a two-stage empirical study of the mental state among 510 doctors and nurses working for 1 year during the COVID-19 pandemic in infectious disease hospitals of the Volgograd region: 279 and 231 persons at the 1st and 2nd stage, respectively. The methodological complex included “Questionnaire for identifying and assessing neurotic states” (K.K. Yakhin, D.M. Mendelevich) and “Methodology for measuring the level of mental burnout” (V.V. Boyko).

Results and Discussion. It has been established that most medical workers have no neurotic manifestations. The following manifestations significantly decreased in severity over time: obsessive-phobic manifestations (p < 0.001) and asthenia (p < 0.05) in the doctors, and obsessive-phobic disorders (p < 0.01), autonomic disorders (p < 0.01), hysterical responses (p < 0.05) in the nurses. Indicators of the mental burnout decreased among doctors in the phases of “resistance” (p < 0.01) and “stress” (p < 0.05), and among nurses - in the phases of “resistance” (p < 0.05) and “exhaustion” (p < 0.05) according to the Boyko test.

Conclusion. The results obtained indicate a positive trend in the level of mental maladaptation and burnout syndrome in medical workers of infectious disease hospitals in the Volgograd region. Both psychoprophylactic and organizational measures helped improve the mental state of physicians, thus indicating the need for comprehensive prevention of mental maladjustment among healthcare professionals.

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