The impact of COVID-19 on medical practitioners’ mental health: A scoping review

Abstract

Background: Providing care and treatment throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has put frontline medical practitioners under physical and psychological pressures. Mental health is a critical public health issue which is often overlooked in mental practitioners. The aim of this scoping review is to explore and systematically review existing studies on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health of medical practitioners worldwide.

Methods: A review of relevant studies was followed to address the question of the review. The studies were identified using relevant databases (MEDLINE, PsycInfo, CINAHL and Google for grey literature). Title and abstract screening were completed prior to full text examination of the studies. The five-stage methodological framework developed by Arskey and O'Malley for scoping reviews was utilized. Extracted data were classified and analysed using a narrative synthesis and summarized accordingly.

Results: Following removal of duplicates and screening against inclusion and exclusion criteria, 21 studies were included in this review. Multiple mental health concerns were identified and categorised into three core themes 1) Burnout 2) Stress-Anxiety-Depression, and 3) Post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health concerns.

Conclusion: This scoping review highlights the mental health issues that medical practitioners faced and describes the risk factors that triggered these concerns during the height of the pandemic. It also provides recommendations for practitioners and organizations to enable doctors to cope better with mental health issues including. These recommendations include spreading awareness, encouraging practitioners to seek early help, and tackling stigma.