SynthesisSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2021
Mental health of clinical staff working in high-risk epidemic and pandemic health emergencies a rapid review of the evidence and living meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Identification and classification of risk factors for mental health problems in healthcare workers using a systemic framework: an umbrella review.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Are Organizational Interventions Effective in Protecting Healthcare Worker Mental Health during Epidemics/Pandemics? A Systematic Literature Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Interventions to support the resilience and mental health of frontline health and social care professionals during and after a disease outbreak, epidemic or pandemic: a mixed methods systematic review.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Longitudinal Study on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression Among Medical Staff in China.Health care science · 2026Article
- Factors associated with nurses' physical and psychological quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic: a multicentre analytical cross-sectional study.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- Nurse leaders' appraisal of work-organizational interventions during COVID-19: an interview study in German hospitals and long-term care facilities.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- No Backstage: The Relentless Emotional Management of Acute Nursing Through the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of advanced nursing · 2025Article
- Self-care strategies used by disaster responders after the 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria: a mixed methods study.BMC emergency medicine · 2024Article
- A living critical interpretive synthesis to yield a framework on the production and dissemination of living evidence syntheses for decision-making.Implementation science : IS · 2024Review
- Case report: A rare case ofFrontiers in immunology · 2024Article
- Experiences of health professionals in EU institutions during the Covid crisis.International journal of disaster risk reduction : IJDRR · 2023Article
- Methodological quality and reporting quality of COVID-19 living systematic review: a cross-sectional study.BMC medical research methodology · 2023Article
- Psychosocial Risks among Quebec Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Social Media Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- A service evaluation of phased- and stepped-care psychological support for health and social care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.BJPsych open · 2023Article
- What alleviates depression among medical workers in emergency risk events? The function of subjective social status.Heliyon · 2023Article
- Mental Health of Healthcare Professionals: Two Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Portugal.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms among medical staff two years after the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China: Social support and resilience as mediators.Journal of affective disorders · 2023Article
- Prevalence of COVID-19 fear and its association with quality of life and network structure among Chinese mental health professionals after ending China's dynamic zero-COVID policy: a national survey.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on health-care workers.The lancet. Psychiatry · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThe SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns about the potential mental health impact on frontline clinical staff. However, given that poor mental health is common in acute medical staff, we aimed to estimate the additional burden of work involving high exposure to infected patients.
methodsWe report a rapid review, meta-analysis, and living meta-analysis of studies using validated measures from outbreaks of COVID-19, Ebola, H1N1 influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
resultsA random effects meta-analysis found that high-exposure work is not associated with an increased prevalence of above cut-off scoring (anxiety: RR = 1.30, 95% CI 0.87-1.93, Total N = 12,473; PTSD symptoms: RR = 1.16, 95% CI 0.75-1.78, Total N = 6604; depression: RR = 1.50, 95% CI 0.57-3.95, Total N = 12,224). For continuous scoring, high-exposure work was associated with only a small additional burden of acute mental health problems compared to low-exposure work (anxiety: SMD = 0.16, 95% CI 0.02-0.31, Total N = 6493; PTSD symptoms: SMD = 0.20, 95% CI 0.01-0.40, Total N = 5122; depression: SMD = 0.13, 95% CI -0.04-0.31, Total N = 4022). There was no evidence of publication bias.
conclusionAlthough epidemic and pandemic response work may add only a small additional burden, improving mental health through service management and provision of mental health services should be a priority given that baseline rates of poor mental health are already very high. As new studies emerge, they are being added to a living meta-analysis where all analysis code and data have been made freely available: https://osf.io/zs7ne/ .
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.