The COVID-19 pandemic forces frontline health-care workers to make difficult medical decisions that may result in moral injury. Understanding the extent to which physicians, nurses, and other health-care workers experience moral injury while working in a pandemic is of critical importance to establish preventative measures and trauma-informed treatment. A national sample of health-care workers (n = 109) participated in the study.

Having dealt with the months-long terror of crammed ICUs, unavailable PPE and the fear of getting infected, the coronavirus crisis is taking its toll on healthcare workers' mental health. 

After 15 years as an emergency doctor, Anand Swaminathan was familiar with the traumatic experiences that came along with his job – treating victims of shootings, stabbings and terrible incidents of domestic violence. But it was the relentless, months-long influx of patients during the Covid-19 pandemic that made him seek therapy for the first time.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered vast governmental lockdowns. The impact of these lockdowns on mental health is inadequately understood. On the one hand such drastic changes in daily routines could be detrimental to mental health. On the other hand, it might not be experienced negatively, especially because the entire population was affected.

Methods

There are a number of challenges in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease outbreak encountered by many countries in the world. This commentary divides them into those encountered by (health) care delivery systems and those encountered by affected communities and states. There are also a number of stressors experienced by humanitarian field workers during the COVID-19 outbreak.