On Wednesday, 14 July 2021, Thammasat University students are cordially invited to join a free webinar about preserving the mental health of healthcare workers in the United Kingdom: Supporting a mentally healthy National Health Service (NHS) workforce.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes several books about different aspects of maintaining the health of healthcare workers.
International perspectives may be helpful on the important issue of preserving the well-being, including the psychological health, of healthcare workers during the stressful time of the Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
As new challenges are presented daily, healthcare workers are under unprecedented psychological and other work-related pressures that may lead to health problems.
The event is presented by The University of Sheffield, the United Kingdom and will take place at 7pm Bangkok time.
The speaker will be Dr Emily Wood, PhD, RNMH, Research Fellow at the School of Health and Related Research, The University of Sheffield. As her faculty webpage notes, Dr Wood is
a mental health nurse and researcher in the mental health research unit in ScHARR. I have worked in a variety of ward-based and community mental health services in the UK and Gibraltar. I am a qualified EMDR therapist and completed my PhD in Health Services Research, with a focus on the use of EMDR to treat long term depression. I am interested in a whole person view of health care particularly in people who have multiple conditions which include both mental and physical illnesses…
The event description follows in part:
There are over 100,000 vacancies in the NHS, meaning 1 in 12 jobs are unfilled. Half of staff report working unpaid overtime and 1 in 8 left the NHS in 2018. Chronic understaffing and long hours leads to significant stress with 40% of staff reporting suffering from work related stress in the NHS staff survey.
In 2015, NHS Professionals launched a large campaign to move NHS management thinking away from workforce wellbeing as a ‘nice to have’ and towards seeing it as a priority area. In 2020, NHS Employers launched ‘Get on-board with health and wellbeing priorities’, suggesting not much had changed in five years. Unfortunately this new initiative was launched in March and quickly got overshadowed by the COVID-19 crisis.
The pandemic shifted the focus of stress for the NHS workforce but it did not create it. Many were already struggling.
The majority of workforce wellbeing interventions focus on trying to help the staff member cope with stress. Many of these are short term interventions and do nothing to address the wider causes of stress in the first place. Some have even gone so far as to say these interventions are akin to victim blaming, as they suggest it is the worker’s fault they cannot cope with stress, when we should be looking at why they are under stress in the first place.
This webinar will look at some of the research we have done to model the complex relationships between staff retention, job satisfaction and wellbeing and organisational culture and place that in the wider context.
Health and well-being of healthcare workers in Thailand under the COVID-19 pandemic
An article from the Journal of the Psychiatric Association of Thailand by Dr. Akekalak Sangsirilak of the Department of Psychiatry, Surin Hospital and Dr. Sirinrat Sangsirilak of the Department of Social Medicine, Surin Hospital explored the subject of Stress and depressed mood in healthcare workers during COVID-19 outbreak:
ABSTRACT
Background: Public healthcare organizations have increased workload due to outbreak of COVID-19. There are panic among peoples. Healthcare workers take risk of infection from patients. This study measures the stress and depression level among healthcare workers to relieve suffering from work.
Method: descriptive cross-sectional study, using ST-5, 9Q scales. Duration from March 2020 to April 2020.
Results: 179 Surin hospital healthcare workers were included, consist of multidisciplinary teams who work associated with COVID-19 from varies department; Cohort ward, Single room, Lab investigation, Disease control, PCC, CEO. Average overtime period is 2.51 ± 2.55 periods per week. Repeated measure 3 times, 2 weeks duration apart. This study reveals that 41.9% got moderate to severe stress in first measurement then down to 36.46%, 25.93% on second and third measurement respectively. The disease control is the most stress department (71%), Cohort ward (70%) and Lab investigation (47.37%)
Conclusion: Healthcare workers who work associated with COVID-19 have more stress and depressed mood than normal population (General population stress 19.5%, depression 0.5%). However, the stress and depression decrease level when repeated measure.
Last year in Medicine, a publication of the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, an article by a group of Thai researchers led by Dr. Surapon Nochaiwong of the Department of Pharmaceutical Care, Faculty of Pharmacy, Chiang Mai University addressed the question of Mental health circumstances among health care workers and general public under the pandemic situation of COVID-19 (HOME-COVID-19).
The article’s abstract read in part:
After the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) globally, upgraded quarantine and physical distancing strategy, strict infection measures, and government’s strict lockdown have been abided to confront the spread of the COVID-19 in Thailand. During the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns about the mental health and psychosocial problems among health care workers and the general population are now arising. Yet, information on mental health and psychosocial problems among health care workers and the general population have not been comprehensively reported in Thailand. As such, we conduct a cross-sectional study, a national online survey to describe the short- and long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and psychosocial problems among health care workers and the general population in Thailand.
The article’s conclusion:
This prospective repeated cross-sectional study, the national-based online survey will report the prevalence of mental health and psychosocial problems among health care workers and the general population in Thailand during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings from our study can aid health care professionals, public health officials, and public society by quantifying and identify factors that may accelerate or mitigate the negative impact of the COVID-19. This information can inform the design of strategies for public policy and cope with mental health and psychosocial life events. Our findings will disseminate in the forms of public and scientific meetings along with the peer-reviewed publication.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)