Abstract
The pandemic COVID‐19 (SARS‐CoV‐2) has had a major global impact on the healthcare systems worldwide as they deal with the surge of critically ill persons. Additionally, the preventative measure of stay‐at‐home orders and closure of nonessential businesses has caused the disruption of entire communities. The child/youth mental health workforce bears the additional burden of the disruption of the systems‐based practice crucial to the successful provision of mental health services. Major sources of stress for the workforce include: (a) a threat to the worker’s personal/family health and life (traumatic injury), (b) a loss of colleagues or threat to professional mastery and identity (grief injury), (c) an inner conflict between ones’ values and aspirations and what they are able to accomplish in their work (moral injury), and (d) fatigue, simply feeling worn out by the relentless work and need, without time for rest and recovery (fatigue injury). The rapid transformation of the in‐person to virtual practice by the implementation of telehealth/telephonic sessions has eroded the boundary between personal/professional life and created a new Zoom fatigue.
Keywords: COVID‐19, pandemic, stress, disaster, mental health
Children and youth require a community of resources and agencies to promote their healthy development. A complicated set of services between these various child serving agencies includes eight different systems: Health Care, Education, Welfare, Juvenile Justice, Developmental Disabilities, Substance Abuse, Early Childhood, and Mental Health. Child mental health professionals and paraprofessionals who make up the workforce for the care children and youth operate within and between these systems (Care, 2009). Typically, whenever a pending disaster is identified the readiness plans for agencies and the public are mobilized to ensure the safety of children and their families. Such mobilization relies on the social engagement of citizen volunteers and agency employees in congregate spaces. The arrival of COVID‐19 (SARS‐CoV‐2) into the United State of America, however, has disrupted everything in unprecedented ways. While previous disasters were discrete and time‐limited, this pandemic is widespread with an ongoing threat and with no identified end‐date. Community life has been disrupted for all. Mandatory stay‐at‐home orders close all nonessential businesses depriving many people of their livelihoods, close educational and social services, and limit access to vital goods, while removing the healing power of human physical contact. The stress effects of forced quarantine and social distancing are resulting in loneliness, anxiety, and depressed mood for many. Children and adolescents are experiencing mental distress due to the disruptions caused by the closure of schools, activities, and maintaining social and physical distancing (Lee, 2020).
Impact on healthcare workers
Pandemics have unique and severe consequences for healthcare workers which can be mitigated by maintaining adequate healthcare worker capacity (Morganstein, Fullerton, Ursano, Donato, & Holloway, 2017). The invisible and unknown nature of the COVID‐19 (SARS‐CoV‐2) virus has meant that the rate of transmission/infection and the manifestation of the illness of the acute respiratory syndrome have caused confusion and acute stress for those at risk and for those caring for them. Based on past experience with SARS and the more recent experience in China with COVID‐19 (SARS‐CoV‐2), healthcare workers are known to have heightened levels of stress and risk for infection (Walton, Murray, & Christian, 2020). The requirements for personal protective equipment to be worn for extended periods of time and who should wear them has further exacerbated the distress being experienced. The shortages of PPE due to a lack of adequate reserves of medical equipment further threatened an already stressed healthcare system. The discontinuation of elective procedures and medical services to prepare for the anticipated surge of severely ill patients with COVID‐19 resulted in a rapid decline in revenue needed to support the workforce. Additionally, many professional staff were reassigned to areas outside their usual scope of specialization/practice to provide basic acute care support to the medical teams caring for acutely ill patients. The impact of these measures on the mental health of the healthcare workforce including the mental health professionals who treat children and youth has been immense.
Healthcare professionals in general have had to cope with the same societal disruptions and emotional stressors as the general public, while also facing greater risk of exposure, extreme workloads, moral challenges, and a highly fluid and unfamiliar practice environment.
According to a recently published American Medical Association guide Caring for health care workers during crisis: Creating a resilient organization (Shanafelt, Brown, & Sinsky, 2020), there are four major sources of stress 'for healthcare workers (1) a threat to the worker’s personal/family health and life (traumatic injury); (2) a loss of colleagues or threat to professional mastery and identity (grief injury); (3) an inner conflict between ones’ values and aspirations and what they are able to accomplish in their work (moral injury); and (4) fatigue, simply feeling worn out by the relentless work and need, without time for rest and recovery (fatigue injury)'. In a study which involved eight listening sessions with groups of physicians, nurses, advanced practice clinicians, residents, and fellows five requests were identified: hear me, protect me, prepare me, support me, and care for me (Shanafelt, Ripp, & Trockel, 2020). This matrix for the needed support applies to the mental health professionals and front line workers providing essential mental health services to children and youth. Examples of such services include peer support activities and crisis call lines.
Child and youth mental health professionals
One of the most commonly noted major sources of stress for child and youth mental health clinicians is fatigue associated with the lack of boundaries between work and personal life. This was brought about by the stay‐at‐home orders and the overnight transformation of in‐person practice to virtual practice via telehealth and telephonic sessions. Many child mental health professionals report having to find a quiet space in their bathroom, closet, or basement to conduct a session. Even then they have found that children often will not be able to remain in the window of view for the session. An associated sense of loss of the nonverbal cues so important to the work of child therapists has left many feeling they have provided inadequate care. This is often combined with the challenge of having to parent their own children and/or provide home schooling. Nearly everyone feels they were not prepared for this. It has been a very steep learning curve in the use of technology and a particular challenge to those areas which lack adequate high‐speed internet access or even basic cell phone service. While the success of this expanded telehealth service has offset the financial strain due to loss of in‐person encounters, it has nevertheless created major anxiety and 'Zoom fatigue' (Callahan, 2020). Many special training sessions, virtual social support groups, and town hall style meetings on Zoom were created to address this emotional impact.
Now, we are facing another set of challenges related to the re‐opening of our communities and practices while still in the middle of a pandemic. Again, the experience of not being prepared to know what to do or how to do it has emerged as a major stress. While the approach of a phased opening offers the opportunity to gradually increase the degrees of risk for exposure for communities, it still does not necessarily address the individual risk circumstance for those who do not work for large healthcare systems which have developed testing and supplies of PPE to mitigate the risks. In these circumstances, it is reported that issues of fairness and social justice have emerged as minority populations most at risk may be told to come to clinics rather than continue to use remote telehealth visits. Child mental health professionals are finding themselves in the middle of circumstances over which they have little control. Moral injuries abound.
Ethical information
No ethical approval was required for this article.
Acknowledgements
The author has declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest.
References
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