Every outbreak of COVID-19 poses a risk to healthcare workers: PTSD

September 5 (Reuters) – Nurse Chris Prott’s knees jump, his heart races, his mouth dries up and his mind fills with dark memories when he talks about working in the intensive care unit (ICU ) of Milwaukee VA Medical Center during pandemic outbreaks.

Prott shares a struggle common to many military veterans he has cared for for years: the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Prott was among a half-dozen ICU staff who spoke to Reuters about symptoms such as waking up from sweat-drenched nightmares; flashbacks to dying patients during the fear-filled first days of the pandemic; bursting anger; and panics at the sound of medical alarms. Those whose symptoms last more than a month and are severe enough to interfere with daily life may be diagnosed with PTSD.

The burgeoning Delta variant is accumulating new trauma as the United States and other countries begin to study PTSD in healthcare workers. Data has already shown that U.S. health workers were in crisis before COVID-19.

Although PTSD is associated with combat, it can occur in civilians after natural disasters, abuse, or other trauma. Health workers may be reluctant to equate their experience with that of returning soldiers.

“I feel like an idiot calling it PTSD,” Prott said. “It took me a long time to be able to talk to someone because I see guys with real PTSD. What I have is nothing in comparison, so you feel guilty for thinking that. “

Psychiatrist Dr Bessel van der Kolk knows best.

“On the surface, a nurse at your local hospital won’t look like a guy returning from Afghanistan,” said the author of “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma”. “But underneath all of that we have these fundamental functions determined by neurobiology which are the same.”

Pre-pandemic studies have shown that PTSD rates among frontline health workers ranged from 10% to 50%. The suicide rate among physicians was more than double that of the general public.

The American Medical Association (AMA) enlisted a military psychologist and the National Center for PTSD at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to help them measure the impact of the pandemic.

Texas Tech University Health Science Center psychiatry resident Dr Huseyin Bayazit and researchers from his native Turkey interviewed 1,833 Turkish health workers last fall. The results, presented in May at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, showed a PTSD rate of 49.5% among non-physicians and 36% for physicians. Rates of suicidal thoughts increased as workers spent more time in COVID-19 units.

Unions want to alleviate trauma by establishing national rules for the number of patients treated by each nurse. Workers say they shouldn’t have to pay for therapy, drugs and other procedures.

The AMA and other groups want more privacy for physicians seeking mental health services. Most of the ICU staff who discussed PTSD with Reuters requested anonymity for fear of repercussions at work.

The Mount Sinai Health System in New York and the Rush University System for Health in Chicago provide free and confidential mental health services.

The new Mount Sinai Center for Stress, Resilience and Personal Growth offers nurses a military-inspired “Battle Buddies” peer support program. A chaplain from Rush’s “Road Home” program for veterans leads a “post-traumatic growth” grief support group for critical care nurses.

The VA System provides free short-term mental health counseling through its Employee Assistance Program. Many local VA facilities complement those with spiritual counseling and crisis incident response teams, a spokesperson said.

“YOU MUST DEAL WITH THIS”

About 5,000 American doctors drop out every two years due to burnout, said Dr Christine Sinsky, vice president of WADA. The annual cost is around $ 4.6 billion, including lost job vacancies and recruiting expenses, she said.

The results of the hospital survey in March led the Department of Health and Human Services to warn that “staff shortages have affected patient care, and burnout and trauma have taken their toll. on staff mental health “.

Trauma surgeon Dr. Kari Jerge volunteered to work in a Phoenix COVID-19 ward during the surge last winter. She turned down much more pay to return to the ICU after the Delta variant surged.

Jerge encourages others to prioritize “self-preservation”, but worries about the loss of expertise. “There is endless value in a nurse who has worked in intensive care for 20 years and who just has the intuition when something is wrong with a patient,” she said.

Nurse Pascaline Muhindura, 40, who cares for COVID-19 patients in Kansas City, Missouri, has advocated for the safety of health workers since the loss of a colleague to illness at the start of the pandemic .

“It just keeps getting worse. We are going back to this place – it has rekindled those emotions again,” said Muhindura, who added that many employers do not offer adequate insurance coverage for therapy.

An intensive care unit fosters the kind of camaraderie forged in combat. A group of southern California COVID-19 nurses got matching tattoos. Health workers sympathize with crying to get home from tough shifts, support each other on social media and push colleagues to seek help.

“There’s nothing wrong with feeling this way,” VA nurse Prott said. “You still have to deal with it. “

Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles Editing by Donna Bryson and Bill Berkrot

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