中華心理衛生協會

 Objective: The 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and its rapid spread around the world resulted in an increased workload and greater psychological stress for frontline paramedics. To address the physical and mental burdens of paramedics in Taiwan, we assessed factors related to mood disorders and proposed measures to mitigate these issues. Methods: Using a cross-sectional design, we administered a questionnaire to 200 paramedics to examine the associations among stress, the extent of Covid-19 related traumatic response, perceived stress, sleep quality, depression, and anxiety. Results: The correlation analyses revealed significant relationships between traumatic responses such as compulsive examination with assurance-seeking behavior and a fear of danger and contamination with both depression and anxiety. Both sleep quality and perceived COVID-19-related stress were also significantly correlated with depression and anxiety. Logistic regression analysis results showed that the degree of COVID-19 traumatic stress response, perceived stress, low sleep quality and marriage status are all significant predictors of increased depression and anxiety symptoms in paramedics. Conclusions: We propose the following recommendations: 1. Construct a paramedic stress scale and a health promotion model suitable for Taiwanese paramedics; 2. Identify the ambulance service items and manpower requirements that need to be adjusted to suit special infectious disease periods; 3. Set up a dedicated mental health department staffed by professional psychological counsellors with expertise in depression and anxiety to serve medical professionals during a pandemic.

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