ArticleBrain sciences2022
The Elephant in the Room: A Cross-Sectional Study on the Stressful Psychological Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Mental Healthcare Workers.
Article in Brain sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder in healthcare workers before and during COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2026Pooled it
- The impact of COVID-19 on the mental health workforce: A rapid review.International journal of mental health nursing · 2023Pooled it
- Machine learning in the analysis of mental health at work: a scoping review.Journal of occupational health · 2026Article
- "It was simply disturbing" - evaluation of the stress factors of nursing staff on special COVID-19 wards during the pandemic: a qualitative study.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- Ontario healthcare workers who sought treatment for their mental health during the first five waves of the COVID-19 pandemic: a snapshot of self-referrals across the province.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2025Article
- Death and dying during the COVID-19-pandemic - A qualitative evaluation of stress factors for nursing staff.Palliative care and social practice · 2025Article
- Editorial: Cognitive and mental health improvement under- and post-COVID-19, volume II.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Impact of occupational death trauma on burnout among mental health professionals: the mediating role of secondary traumatic stress.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Treatment of Cognitive Impairment Associated with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: New Evidence, Challenges, and Future Perspectives.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Prevalence and Determinants of Anxiety and Depression Among Healthcare Workers in Liaoning Province, China.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2024Article
- The Responsiveness of Mental Health Service Professionals to Two Years of Pandemic Emergency in Italy.Administration and policy in mental health · 2023Article
- Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells as Novel Diagnostic Tools for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Visualizing Relationships with Known and Potential Disease Biomarkers.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- The Mental Health of Poles during the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Psychology, stress, insomnia, and resilience of medical staff in China during the COVID-19 policy opening: a cross-sectional survey.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- The other side of COVID-19: A cross-sectional study on mental health in a sample of Italian nurses during the second wave.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Post-pandemic self-reported mental health of mental healthcare professionals in the Netherlands compared to during the pandemic - an online longitudinal follow-up study.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- The influence of perceived stress of Chinese healthcare workers after the opening of COVID-19: the bidirectional mediation between mental health and job burnout.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- How are you coping? Stress, coping, burnout, and aggression in forensic mental healthcare workers.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- The Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Practices and Mental Health of Psychologists in Belgium: Between Exhaustion and Resilience.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Long-acting Injectable Antipsychotics during the COVID-19 pandemic in schizophrenia: An observational study in a real-world clinical setting.Psychiatry research · 2022Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite extensive research on COVID-19's impact on healthcare workers, few studies have targeted mental health workers (MHWs) and none have investigated previous traumatic events. We investigated psychological distress in MHWs after the first lockdown in Italy to understand which COVID-19, sociodemographic, and professional variables represented greater effects, and the role of previous trauma. The survey included sociodemographic and professional questions, COVID-19 variables, and the questionnaires Life Events Checklist for DSM-5 (LEC-5), Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and Depression Anxiety Stress Scales 21 (DASS-21). On the 271 MHWs who completed the survey (73.1% female; mean age 45.37), we obtained significant effects for contagion fear, experience of patients' death, increased workload, and worse team relationship during the first wave. Nurses were more affected and showed more post-traumatic stress symptoms, assessed by IES-R, and more depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms, assessed by DASS-21. The strongest risk factors for distress were greater age, professional role, increased workload, worse team relationship, and separation from family members. Previous experience of severe human suffering and unwanted sexual experiences negatively impacted IES-R and DASS-21 scores. Being a psychiatrist or psychologist/psychotherapist and good team relationships were protective factors. Recent but also previous severe stressful events might represent relevant risk factors for distress, reducing resilience skills. Identifying vulnerable factors and professional categories may help in the development of dedicated measures to prevent emotional burden and support psychological health. Highlights: Psychological distress in mental health workers in the COVID-19 pandemic is more frequent in nurses, who experience more depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Previous and recent stressful events are risk factors for distress and should guide intervention strategies.
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Registered trials
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