Ansiedad, depresión y malestar emocional en los profesionales sanitarios de las Unidades de Cuidados Intensivos

Abstract

Health Workers (HW) who work in the Intensive Care Units (ICU), are not exempt from emotional effects of coping with suffering and death situations daily. Many studies in HW have focused on the burnout syndrome and have presented anxiety and depression as consequences of this syndrome. The aim of this work is to assess the anxiety and depression problems, as well as the subjective perception of mood of the ICU health workers. Participants were 117 ICU health workers of a Hospital in the Valencian Community (Spain). The descriptive analyses show that between 14.6-20% and a 4-7% of participants have symptoms of anxiety and depression, respectively. Differential analyses, show gender differences in several measures of anxiety, as well as on depression scores. Age and experience are related to depression and anxiety. Furthermore, we performed regression analyses to know the importance of the different variables in the presence of symptoms of anxiety and depression. The results show that working in daily contact with suffering and death, in a Unit in which the demands are many, could have implications for the mental health of professionals.