These are some of the factors that make health professionals vulnerable victims, limiting their own well-being.
According to the WHO (World Health Organization), a healthy work environment is one in which workers and managers collaborate in using a process of continuous improvement to protect and promote the health, safety, and well-being of workers and the sustainability of the workplace.
Some jobs that involve a constant, direct, and close contact relationship with the client or recipient of their work, such as those carried out by humanitarian and first responders, carry a higher risk that can cause psychological, social, or physical in the health of workers. Furthermore, the risks may be higher in situations where the team is not cohesive, social support is not available, the tasks assigned to a person do not match their skills, or the workload is permanently high.
Work stress as a psychosocial risk is a reality that affects many workers in the different professional sectors, however, the results of new research show that distress (negative stress) or poor health of doctors and professionals in the health sector, when prolonged in time, it can lead to terms such as “burnout” (when individuals feel emotionally overwhelmed by the demands of their work), physical and/or emotional exhaustion, fatigue, depression, anxiety, psychological anguish, deterioration, self-medication, harmful consumption of alcohol, drugs or psychotropic drugs, are factors that negatively affect health systems and patient care. Thus, when the doctors are not well, their performance and quality in the health system care can be suboptimal and absenteeism increases considerably.
Additionally, suicide is a public health problem in practically every country in the world, which causes almost half of all violent deaths and translates into around one million victims a year, in addition to generating economic costs of thousands of millions of dollars, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has pointed out, the estimates made indicate that in 2020 the victims could rise to 1.5 million. Likewise, it is estimated that this year 2020, depression will be the main cause of incapacity for work. The WHO also states that in Europe approximately 1 in 10 people suffer or have suffered depression throughout their lives, leading to consequences in their workplace such as lack of attention, memory loss, or difficulties in planning and making decisions, which leave a significant mark on their job performance.
The recent study carried out by the CGCOM (General Council of Official Medical Colleges) presented the first report on the life expectancy and causes of death of Spanish Doctors in the period studied (2005-2014), where it reveals that the percentage of Suicide is higher among medical professionals with an average of 1.3% compared to 0.8% of the general population.
The report on mortality in the medical profession highlights that during the 10 years observed (2005-2014) the percentage of suicide among doctors has increased. This percentage ranges from a minimum of 0.47% of doctors who took their lives in 2007 to a maximum of 1.96% in 2013. Additionally, the doctors have a 7.5% higher suicide rate than women in the population general.
Although these results may not be directly applicable to all countries, they can serve to draw attention to the phenomena of deterioration of working conditions throughout the world and their relationship with the increase in psychosocial disorders, helping to focus the focus not only on unemployed people but also in workers who commit suicide.
On the other hand, pandemics inevitably generate stress, sadness, and even fear, since not only the health personnel who attend the crisis face the uncertainty, tension, helplessness, and anguish of not being able to help patients who may have lived or had a better result if they had been treated in a different way, with more knowledge or optimal medical resources, but also the difficulties related to high responsibility, insufficient time, work overload and living to reconcile work and family demands, fear of exposure to the virus since a large majority feel unprotected in terms of the protection equipment that is provided to them, anxiety before the contagion of themselves or their loved ones, as well as the concerns of not being able to meet the high standards that each professional It demands itself, being able to trigger a series of serious mental health conditions.
Also, a particularly vulnerable group are members of the response teams that worked on the epidemic and those in charge of handling the bodies. Autopsy managers are included who feel overwhelmed and overwhelmed in their workload when situations of mass deaths occur. Not all workers and volunteers are suitable for these tasks, depending on conditions related to vulnerability and circumstances; factors such as age, personality, previous experiences, beliefs about death, etc. must be taken into account. Because the work to be done will have a great human impact.
Therefore, the need to assess and detect different psychosocial factors within organizations helps to prevent possible psychological disturbances in workers, as well as early detection of depression or suicidal ideation and behavior. In many occasions, the psychological sphere of the worker is ignored, and suicide and mental illness at work are taboo because they generate a confrontation with modern forms of work organization, therefore, it is a task from the prevention of occupational risks to recognize these situations, giving them the capital importance that they have in the health of the workers and at the same time improve performance and organizational health.
However, most organizations do not have the tools to identify the different psychosocial factors, their evolution over time, and consequences, which leads to not having preventive or intervention measures against psychosocial occupational risks.
EmoRisk allows detecting different emotional states in health professionals, such as depression, burnout, anxiety, dissatisfaction, anger, discomfort, extreme emotions, happiness, and more.,
EmoRisk helps prevent and detect through alerts to staff via emotional changes on a daily basis in the entry and exit of each employee.
Contact Us: contact@logicalcommander.com
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