Caring for the Caregivers: Mental and Spiritual Support for Healthcare Teams During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond
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EDITORIAL
Caring for the Caregivers: Mental and Spiritual Support for Healthcare Teams During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond Gilad E. Amiel 1 & Nirit Ulitzur 1 Published online: 15 September 2020 # American Association for Cancer Education 2020
The unique challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has put upon us are more pronounced when dealing with cancer patients. Healthcare teams are adjusting to an ever-changing environment with an elusive disease that requires adaptation to new practices. Since much of the effort is directed toward Corona-dedicated departments, other teams are depleted, while required to maintain the same level of service. When dealing with cancer patients, things are even more complex: among those who do come to get treated, many are immunecompromised and are at a higher risk of complications upon contracting the virus. Others are reluctant to seek medical care in hospitals since they are perceived as “risky” places to contract the disease. We are starting to see patients that postponed seeking medical care in previous months and currently presenting with malignancies at later stages of their disease [1]. All this puts a huge burden on healthcare providers in general and those who treat cancer patients in particular. Positive professional quality of life leads to compassion satisfaction and better patient care. However, with the increased burden the tables turn.
Identifying the Problem Even before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, burnout (BO) among caregivers in general, and physicians in particular, was widespread. About 30% of all American surgeons were reported to suffer from BO [2, 3]. BO is caused by exhaustion, frustration, anger, and depression. This leads to negative professional quality of life and two possible detrimental effects: compassion fatigue (CF) and secondary * Gilad E. Amiel [email protected] 1
Department of Urology and the Service of Spiritual Support, RAMBAM Healthcare Campus, Haifa, Israel
traumatic stress (STS). CF is a deep sense of emotional exhaustion that healthcare providers can experience while helping others in distress. Interestingly, CF has been studied widely among nurses and mental healthcare professionals, but only recently has been examined among physicians and surgeons [3]. STS is a negative feeling driven by fear and work-related trauma [4]. Therefore, BO not only affects the caregiver’s quality of life and health, but also is associated with an increase in medical errors and worse patient outcomes. Additionally, it is well established that sleep deprivation and a critical lack of psychosocial support may aggravate such symptoms [5].
Finding a Solution With a few exceptions, hospitals in general are not designed or adapted to provide continuous emotional support to their staff. This was clearly reflected in a recent Israeli National Health Ministry Burnout Report of 40,000 healthcare employees [6]. There is no evidence to support that the situation is much better in other countries around the globe. In many places, there is a service that
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