The Early Impact of the Covid-19 Emergency on Mental Health Workers: A Survey in Lombardy, Italy

Filippo Rapisarda, Martine Vallarino, Elena Cavallini, Angelo Barbato, Camille Brousseau-Paradis, Luigi De Benedictis and Alain Lesage
Additional contact information
Filippo Rapisarda: Research and Development Team, Sociosfera ONLUS SCS, Via Antonio Gramsci 8, 20831 Seregno, Italy
Martine Vallarino: Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy
Elena Cavallini: Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy
Angelo Barbato: IRCCS Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, Via Mario Negri 2, 20156 Milano, Italy
Camille Brousseau-Paradis: Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Montréal, CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, 7401 Rue Hochelaga, Montreal, QC H1N 3M5, Canada
Luigi De Benedictis: Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Montréal, CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, 7401 Rue Hochelaga, Montreal, QC H1N 3M5, Canada
Alain Lesage: Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Montréal, CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, 7401 Rue Hochelaga, Montreal, QC H1N 3M5, Canada

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 22, 1-12

Abstract: Lombardy was the epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak in Italy, and in March 2020 the rapid escalation in cases prompted the Italian Government to decree a mandatory lockdown and to introduce safety practices in mental health services. The general objective of the study is to evaluate the early impact of the Covid-19 emergency and quarantine on the well-being and work practices of mental health service personnel and professionals. Data were collected through an online survey of workers and professionals working with people with mental health problems in Lombardy in several outpatient and inpatient services. Their socio-demographic characteristics, professional background, description of working conditions during lockdown and psychological distress levels were collected. All analyses were performed on a sample of 241. Approximately, 31% of the participants obtained a severe score in at least one of the burnout dimensions, 11.6% showed moderate or severe levels of anxiety, and 6.6% had a moderate or severe level of depression. Different work conditions and patterns of distress were found for outpatient service workers and inpatient service workers. The overall impact of the Covid-19 emergency on mental health workers’ level of distress was mild, although a significant number of workers experienced severe levels of depersonalization and anxiety. More research is needed to assess specific predictive factors.

Keywords: Covid-19; mental health service; workers; burnout (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8615/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8615/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:22:p:8615-:d:448033

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().