Dr. Ivy Bourgeault Dr. Tracey Adams Dr. Mario Brondani Learn about the Healthy Professional Worker Partnership’s work at healthyprofwork.com because many of those people had said they didn’t have the emotional resources to go through something like SARS again, so one might hypothesize that that group would fare worse during COVID,” Dr. Styra says. But they were equally resilient. “They’d been through it before, and so they rolled up their sleeves and worked through another crisis. It was an encouraging outcome for the overall health care system; health care workers were there to care for their patients.” At the beginning of the pandemic, when most dental offices closed, I can imagine that dentists felt a lot of stress about not being able to care for their patients. A Study of Health Care Worker Mental Health During Crisis In 2003, Dr. Rima Styra, a psychiatrist and associate professor at the University of Toronto, studied how the SARS outbreak affected the mental health of health care workers. “That outbreak caused a lot of stress, so we looked at symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder,” she says. “Many of the health care workers we surveyed said they couldn’t go through something like SARS again. It was too much.” At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Styra and her team performed the survey again with 3,500 health care workers in a variety of settings.1 “We found high levels of anxiety, depression, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress,” she says. The survey also gathered information about how people were coping with stress, with questions about alcohol use, sleep aids, social supports and formal mental health support. “Our results showed that most people got their support though colleagues and family, and that this support positively impacted resilience.” A subset of the people who were surveyed had worked during both SARS and COVID-19. “This was intriguing The SARS outbreak didn’t last as long as the COVID-19 pandemic, which means the two events have different impacts on the mental health of health care workers.2 The staffing issues caused by COVID-19 and the long-term nature of pandemic stress make burnout of particular concern for health care workers, including dentists. “At the beginning of the pandemic, when most dental offices closed, I can imagine that dentists felt a lot of stress about not being able to care for their patients,” she says. “When we feel a moral obligation, but we can’t meet it because of external barriers, that can be very stressful.” This experience is called moral injury or distress. “It might also come up in times when the needs of patients exceed the resources that a dental office can offer. During COVID, often we had limited resources and time due to increased need, and that can be very hard.” Dr. Styra believes that not being able to bond with colleagues and team members during the pandemic has also affected mental health. “Not having coffee with the people we work with or chatting with them casually in the break room may seem like a small thing, but social connections matter,” she says. She also suggests that dentists, who often work in separate offices, can also benefit from building strong relationships within the profession. Support from colleagues who understand Members of the Healthy Professional WorkPartnership, examiningmental health, leaves of absence and return towork. Issues and People
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