Nearly half of the employees and caregivers of retirement homes have suffered from anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to the Covid-19 crisis, according to a study conducted in northern Italy , published Wednesday.
The proportion of anxiety disorders (moderate or severe) and / or symptoms of post-traumatic stress (moderate or severe) reached 43% among the population targeted by the study, with a predominance of PTSD.
In total, just over a thousand nursing home staff were subjected to screening questionnaires in 33 establishments in northern Italy, the area of the country hardest hit by Covid-19 in the spring. .
"Given the gravity of the situation, we expected a reasonably high prevalence, but not at this point,"
one of the study's authors, Elena Rusconi, professor in the department of psychology and psychology, told AFP. cognitive sciences at the University of Trento.
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These personnel represent
"a largely ignored population"
,
"which plays a very sensitive and crucial role in our society and on which the Covid-19 pandemic has placed a particularly sudden and heavy burden"
, she writes with the co-authors of the study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
For the authors of the study, such figures can be explained by the multiplication of risk factors for stress, added to the fear of contracting the virus.
Among them, a strong proximity with the residents which can cause a greater emotional load, especially as the elderly were very exposed to the deadly consequences of Covid-19.
Health restrictions were other sources of tension, with staff having to manage relations with families deprived of visitors and cancellations or restrictions on group activities within establishments.
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“Finally, the staff of these establishments deplored the gaps in information on the procedures to contain the spread of the virus, a lack of drugs and protective equipment, a lack of staff and difficulties in transferring patients with Covid- 19 in hospitals, or to isolate them within the establishment ”
, write the authors of the study.
Who call for an
"urgent and thorough assessment of the psychological state"
of all nursing home staff.
