The Sooner, the Better: Experience of Early-On Psychological Service to Medical Workers in Fever Clinic of a Tertiary General Hospital in Beijing During COVID-19 Outbreak

Objective: We analysed our early-on psychological service to medical workers in fever clinic of a tertiary general hospital in Beijing during the outbreak of covid-19, so as to explore how to provide better psychological help to medical workers at the front line. Methods: From January 20 to March 28, 2020, we offered a resource-oriented supportive psychological hotline service to all medical workers in fever clinic of a general hospital in Beijing. Following data were also acquired and analysed: basic information, qualitative interview, Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), Patient Health Questionaire-9 (PHQ-9) and Maslach Burn-out Inventory (MBI). Results: A total of 102 participants completed the evaluation (response rate 97.1%). Most medical workers found safety measures and adjusting work time and work load important and helpful. Of all the participants, 2.9% had significant stress reactions, 18.6% showed professional burnout, and 6.9% had significant depression. Depression was associated with hyperarousal (b = 0.937, P < 0.001) and emotional exhaustion (b = 0.079, P = 0.012). Conclusion: Security should be the basis for our findings of relatively low stress reactions, burnout, and depression. Hyperarousal, emotional exhaustion and depression were found to be closely related. We call for attention on early integral interventions in similar situations, with special modalities focusing on decreasing hyperarousal. Funding Statement: JY.C received funding support from PUMCH: pumch-2016-3.3. J.W received funding support from PUMCH: ZC201902261. Declaration of Interests: The authors have no competing interests to report. Ethics Approval Statement: This study was approved by the ethics committee of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (S-K1045). All participants gave their oral consent.