The COVID-19 pandemic increased psychosocial risk factors among healthcare professionals (HCPs). Objective: To characterize Portuguese HCPs mental health (MH), estimate anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and burnout symptoms, and identify risk/protective factors. A cross-sectional online survey and a longitudinal assessment were conducted in 2020 (T0) and 2021 (T1). Sociodemographic and occupational variables, COVID-19-related experiences and protective behavior data were collected from a non-probabilistic sample of HCPs in Portugal. Symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD, burnout and resilience were assessed using the Portuguese versions of the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL-5), the Shirom–Melamed Burnout Measure (MBSM) and the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), respectively. Risk and protective factors were identified through simple and multiple logistic regression models. Overall, 2027 participants answered the survey in T0 and 1843 in T1. The percentage of moderate-to-severe symptoms decreased from T0 to T1; however, a considerable proportion of HCPs reported symptoms of distress in both years. Being a woman, working in a COVID-19-treatment frontline position and work–life balance increased the odds of distress. High resilience, good social/family support, and hobbies/lifestyle maintenance were found to be protective factors. Globally, our results show that performing as a HCP during the pandemic may result in long-term effects on MH.
Abstract The adoption of genomics by healthcare systems is crucial to fulfill the potential of Personalised Medicine for patients and citizens. This is a challenging undertaking, and requires from healthcare systems extensive adjustments in key issues, such as technical infrastructure, health professional competences or ethical and legal frameworks. The starting point requires an effective identification of specific challenges and barriers to the development and sustainability of each healthcare system regarding the efficient use of genomic data in medical or preventive care. For this purpose, we developed a Maturity Level Model (MLM) covering key aspects of genomic medicine programmes, including governance, ethics and legislation, genomics standards and best practices, clinical infrastructure and workforce organization, economic aspects and others. The alignment of healthcare systems to this MLM allows the identification of gaps and needs for progression within the model, and to systematically chart a path towards optimization of genomic data integration in mainstream healthcare.
A.R.Marques is recipient of a fellowship from BioSys PhD programme (Ref PD/BD/113773/2015 from FCT (Portugal). Patients and parents were genotyped in the context of the Autism Genome Project (AGP), funded by NIMH, HRB, MRC, Autism Speaks, Hilibrand Foundation, Genome Canada, OGI, CIHR, and the Simons Simplex Collection (SSC), a core project of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI).
Joana M. Vilela is a fellow of the BioSys PhD Programme and a recipient of a PhD grant, with reference PD/BD/131390/2017, funded by FCT – Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia.
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