A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Burnout Among Healthcare Workers During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 1.4 million confirmed cases and over 83,000 deaths globally. It has also sparked fears of an impending economic crisis and recession. Social distancing, self-isolation and travel restrictions forced a decrease in the workforce across all economic sectors and caused many jobs to be lost. Schools have closed down, and the need of commodities and manufactured products has decreased. In contrast, the need for medical supplies has significantly increased. The food sector has also seen a great demand due to panic-buying and stockpiling of food products. In response to this global outbreak, we summarise the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 on individual aspects of the world economy.

Burnout is a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job, and is defined by the three dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. The past 25 years of research has established the complexity of the construct, and places the individual stress experience within a larger organizational context of people's relation to their work. Recently, the work on burnout has expanded internationally and has led to new conceptual models. The focus on engagement, the positive antithesis of burnout, promises to yield new perspectives on interventions to alleviate burnout. The social focus of burnout, the solid research basis concerning the syndrome, and its specific ties to the work domain make a distinct and valuable contribution to people's health and well-being.

Background Along with its high infectivity and fatality rates, the 2019 Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) has caused universal psychosocial impact by causing mass hysteria, economic burden and financial losses. Mass fear of COVID-19, termed as “coronaphobia”, has generated a plethora of psychiatric manifestations across the different strata of the society. So, this review has been undertaken to define psychosocial impact of COVID-19. Methods Pubmed and GoogleScholar are searched with the following key terms- “COVID-19”, “SARS-CoV2”, “Pandemic”, “Psychology”, “Psychosocial”, “Psychitry”, “marginalized”, “telemedicine”, “mental health”, “quarantine”, “infodemic”, “social media” and” “internet”. Few news paper reports related to COVID-19 and psychosocial impacts have also been added as per context. Results Disease itself multitude by forced quarantine to combat COVID-19 applied by nationwide lockdowns can produce acute panic, anxiety, obsessive behaviors, hoarding, paranoia, and depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the long run. These have been fueled by an “infodemic” spread via different platforms social media. Outbursts of racism, stigmatization, and xenophobia against particular communities are also being widely reported. Nevertheless, frontline healthcare workers are at higher-risk of contracting the disease as well as experiencing adverse psychological outcomes in form of burnout, anxiety, fear of transmitting infection, feeling of incompatibility, depression, increased substance-dependence, and PTSD. Community-based mitigation programs to combat COVID-19 will disrupt children's usual lifestyle and may cause florid mental distress. The psychosocial aspects of older people, their caregivers, psychiatric patients and marginalized communities are affected by this pandemic in different ways and need special attention. Conclusion For better dealing with these psychosocial issues of different strata of the society, psychosocial crisis prevention and intervention models should be urgently developed by the government, health care personnel and other stakeholders. Apt application of internet services, technology and social media to curb both pandemic and infodemic needs to be instigated. Psychosocial preparedness by setting up mental organizations specific for future pandemics is certainly necessary.