Abstract
Background: The novel coronavirus disease, COVID 19, is a highly
contagious infectious disease declared by the World Health Organization
pandemic and a global public health emergency. During outbreaks, health
care workers are submitted to enormous emotional burden as they must
balance the fundamental “duty to treat” with the parallel duty to
family and loved ones. The aims of our study is to evaluate disease
perceptions, levels of stress, emotional distress, and coping strategies
among medical staff (COVID 19 versus non-COVID 19 department) in
tertiary pulmonology teaching hospital in the first month after the
outbreak of COVID 19. Methods: One hundred fifteen health care workers
completed four validated questionnaires (the brief illness perception
questionnaire, perceived stress scale, the profile of emotional distress
emotional, cognitive coping evaluation questionnaire) that were
afterward interpreted by one psychologist. Results: There was a high
level of stress and psychological distress among health care workers in
the first month after the pandemic outbreak. Interestingly, there was no
difference between persons that work on COVID 19 department versus those
working in non-COVID 19 department. Disease perceptions and coping
mechanism were similar in the two groups. As coping mechanism,
refocusing on planning and positive reappraisal were used more than in
general population. Conclusions: there is no difference in disease
perceptions, levels of stress, emotional distress, and coping strategies
in medical staff handling COVID 19 patients versus personal that does
not handle COVID patients the first month after the pandemic outbreak