The emergency medicine physicians are at the frontlines of the management of COVID-19 and are vulnerable to the negative mental health effects brought about by the pandemic.
Objectives: This study aims to determine the presence of risk factors of post-traumatic stress disorder among EM physicians and identify their coping strategies.
Methods: This cross-sectional analytic research utilized a self-administered questionnaire to gather information on demographic profile, workplace environment, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), risk perception of COVID -19, and coping strategies.
Results: The majority of the 167 respondents were 26 to 40 years old (69%), single (57%), had no children (59%), and were less than 5 years in practice (60%). The presence of symptoms of post-traumatic stress was identified among EM physicians directly handling covid-19 patients. IES-R scores revealed that 34% of respondents had favorable results, 21% had scores between 24 to 32 wherein PTSD is a clinical concern, 27 (16%) had scores between 33 to 38 which represents the best cutoff for a probable diagnosis of PTSD, and 48 respondents (29%) had clinically important scores of 39 and above. There were multiple coping strategies identified, but the availability of free food was the only significant factor in reducing the risk factors of PTSD by 76% based on the multiple logistic regression model.
Conclusion: Protecting the mental health of EM physicians is an important component of public health measures for addressing the COVID-19 epidemic. Interventions to promote mental well-being among EM physicians and residents need to be immediately implemented.
Key words: emergency medicine, covid-19, post-traumatic stress disorder, mental health, pandemic
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