• Jens Bohlken, Friederike Schömig, Matthias R Lemke, Matthias Pumberger, and Steffi G Riedel-Heller.
• Institut für Sozialmedizin, Arbeitsmedizin und Public Health (ISAP) der Medizinischen Fakultät der Universität Leipzig.
• Psychiatr Prax. 2020 May 1; 47 (4): 190-197.

AimReview of studies on the psychological stress of healthcare workers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsA literature search of PubMed was performed using the terms "COVID-19", "stress", "mental health", "healthcare worker", "staff", "psychiatry". Quantitative studies (including letters to the editor) published from January to March 2020 were included.Results14 studies on healthcare workers in departments of infectiology, internal medicine, and fever wards including intensive care wards as well as surgery and psychiatry, were included. The Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ9), Self-rating-Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Impact of Event Scale (IES-R) were the most often used test instruments. The sample size ranged between 37 and 1257 participants consisting of mostly nursing and medical personnel. The fraction of COVID-19-associated activities varied from 7.5 % to 100 %. An extensive strain was reported due to stress experience as well as depression and anxiety symptoms. Severe degrees of those symptoms were found in 2.2 % to 14.5 % of all participants. The severity of mental symptoms was influenced by age, gender, occupation, specialization, type of activities performed and proximity to COVID-19 patients. As mediator variables selection of personnel, preventive interventions, resilience, and social support were reported.ConclusionConsidering the frequency of mental symptoms occurring in healthcare workers, accompanying mental health informed interventions to facilitate coping are necessary. Further research in this field is needed.© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

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