Staff Mental Health Self-Assessment During the COVID-19 Outbreak

In a survey in Canada about the psychosocial effects of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome on hospital staff, 29% of the respondents scored above the threshold point on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire, indicating probable emotional distress.1 Frontline healthcare workers may experience fear of being infected and spreading the virus to their families, particularly those working in isolation wards and accident and emergency departments. There is a need for timely mental health care for patients and health workers during the COVID-19 outbreak.2 With the high anticipated stress among hospital staff in Hong Kong East Cluster, a comprehensive support programme named Support of You (SOY) is initiated. Since 14 February 2020, the Department of Psychiatry of Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital has provided an online mental health self-assessment questionnaire to all hospital staff in the cluster. In China, a national guideline has been established for emergency psychological crisis intervention for the COVID-19 outbreak, and it recommends that (1) frontline staff involving in the care of COVID-19[-]infected patients should receive prior psychological crisis intervention trainings to anticipate patient's psychological reactions;(2) staff working in isolation ward should be put on rotations;(3) accommodation should be provided to frontline staff for self-isolation;(4) hotline and online psychological crisis interventions should be provided to needed staff;(5) and a psychological response team consisting of psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychiatric nurses should be formed in each unit to provide staff with psychological support.3 Enhancing the psychological well-being of hospital staff during the COVID-19 outbreak is equally important to the fight against the outbreak.