Vicarious traumatization in the general public, members, and non-members of medical teams aiding in COVID-19 control

Zhenyu Li, Jingwu Ge, Meiling Yang, Jianping Feng, Mei Qiao, Riyue Jiang, Jiangjiang Bi, Gaofeng Zhan, Xiaolin Xu, Long Wang, Qin Zhou, Chenliang Zhou, Yinbing Pan, Shijiang Liu, Haiwei Zhang, Jianjun Yang, Bin Zhu, Yimin Hu, Kenji Hashimoto, Yan Jia, Haofei Wang, Rong Wang, Cunming Liu, Chun Yang, Zhenyu Li, Jingwu Ge, Meiling Yang, Jianping Feng, Mei Qiao, Riyue Jiang, Jiangjiang Bi, Gaofeng Zhan, Xiaolin Xu, Long Wang, Qin Zhou, Chenliang Zhou, Yinbing Pan, Shijiang Liu, Haiwei Zhang, Jianjun Yang, Bin Zhu, Yimin Hu, Kenji Hashimoto, Yan Jia, Haofei Wang, Rong Wang, Cunming Liu, Chun Yang

Abstract

Since December 2019, more than 79,000 people have been diagnosed with infection of the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). A large number of medical staff was sent to Wuhan city and Hubei province to aid COVID-19 control. Psychological stress, especially vicarious traumatization caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, should not be ignored. To address this concern, the study employed a total of 214 general public and 526 nurses (i.e., 234 front-line nurses and 292 non-front-line nurses) to evaluate vicarious traumatization scores via a mobile app-based questionnaire. Front-line nurses are engaged in the process of providing care for patients with COVID-19. The results showed that the vicarious traumatization scores for front-line nurses including scores for physiological and psychological responses, were significantly lower than those of non-front-line nurses (P < 0.001). Interestingly, the vicarious traumatization scores of the general public were significantly higher than those of the front-line nurses (P < 0.001); however, no statistical difference was observed compared to the scores of non-front-line nurses (P > 0.05). Therefore, increased attention should be paid to the psychological problems of the medical staff, especially non-front-line nurses, and general public under the situation of the spread and control of COVID-19. Early strategies that aim to prevent and treat vicarious traumatization in medical staff and general public are extremely necessary.

Keywords: COVID-19; Front-line nurses; General public; Non-front-line nurses; Vicarious traumatization.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Source: PubMed

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