Via The Washington Post: COVID-19: Front-line health workers 'at tremendous risk' of mental health consequence, expert warns.
Front-line health-care workers “are at tremendous risk” of developing mental health problems because of their service amid the pandemic, Joshua A. Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said Wednesday.
“They’re working long hours and don’t have a lot of time to build themselves back up before they have to go on their next shift,” he said in an interview on C-SPAN. “So we know from previous disasters and epidemics that they are at high risk.”
Officials and experts have warned that a historic wave of mental health problems is fast approaching because of the pandemic, something the system is ill-equipped to handle.
Gordon said researchers need to know more about how to help front-line health workers and that this also extends to grocery store clerks, hard-hit communities and others.
More research is needed, he said, on “interventions to help reduce the mental health impacts of disasters and pandemics."
He said experts need to look at methods that have worked before and try to figure out how to utilize those to help communities in need.
“We’ve got a number of fast-tracked research proposals that we’re working on to try to encourage the field to understand how best to respond,” Gordon said.
Previous disasters and pandemics suggest some share of people will “develop chronic mental health conditions as a result of exposure to the pandemic,” he said. But, he added, given how different the coronavirus pandemic is from previous emergencies, that ultimate toll is still unknown.
