Title: Health alert: Don’t Forget Yourself, when taking care of others!

Abstract

The DFY-study (Don’t Forget Yourself study: Dutch Regional/National Research Program) focusses on mental health of mental healthcare workers (MHCW) pre-, during-, and post-pandemic. The results of three studies will be addressed. In January 2022, 50% of the MHCW (N=1372) in the Netherlands reported in a self-report questionnaire that they experienced stress and 30% reported signs of depression. An increase in registration at the mental health care institutions took place simultaneously with mental complaints as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This increased workload, next to the pressure of the lengthening of waiting time for admission. The shift from face-to-face to telehealth and the confrontation with social differences among the clients and as a consequence conspiracy thinking in the treatment room, brought unknown topics of conversation and made a big appeal to the MHCW. Alarm bells rang among human resource departments. The second national study in January 2023 showed that MHCW (N=510) reported less symptoms of depression, anxiety and anger but still reported substantial symptoms of stress (35.7%). Nevertheless, some results point out that post-pandemic, this particular employee population shows resilience and significantly reported less mental symptoms post-pandemic compared to during the pandemic (i.e., for stress (Χ2(1, N=1882)= 24.37, p<.001, V=.11), and depression (Χ2(1, N=1882)= 27.20, p<.001, V=.12)). As result of our systematic review (about 1000 papers) on the moderating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental wellbeing of MHCW on sustainable employability, we realized that to prevent MHCW from mental health problems and maintain sustainable employment during pandemic waves, systematic screening of mental health is recommended to provide early protection and offers the opportunity to identify future problems and prevent MHCW from sick leave and/or even resigning. The DFY-study (Don’t Forget Yourself-study) offers relevant signals to the government by monitoring frequently

Biography

Anneloes is director of postgraduate training for psychologists Mental Health Breburg since 2012. She is a Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Psychotraumatherapist, Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, EMDR-practitioner, since 2001. As a Senior scientist-practitioner she is connected to Tranzo, department of Scientist Practitioners at Tilburg University, since 1995. In July 2022 she finished the Master of Health Administration at TIAS, a Top-ranked School for Business and Society of Tilburg University Anneloes has 32 years of work experience as a psychologist in psychiatry: in- and outpatients with complex problems depression, anxiety, PTSD and Personality Disorder. Administrative activities: member of the board of the Dutch National Federation of Health Psychologists and their Specialism (FGzPt) and Chairman of the Dutch Association of Directors of Post graduate training for psychologists in Mental Health (LPO). As an author the focus of the past years was on several publications about Mental Health of healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.