Durban - WITH South Africa and the rest of the world in the midst of fighting the Covid19 pandemic, a University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) webinar on Tuesday revealed that 40% of health-care workers suffered from burnout.
“Burnout has always been highly prevalent in our setting and during the Covid-19 pandemic, surveys have reported higher rates with many studies suggesting a prevalence rate of 40% among all health-care workers,” said Dr Saeeda Paruk, a senior specialist and lecturer in psychiatry at UKZN.
Paruk said research had shown that 59% of doctors at KZN state hospitals had burnout before Covid-19 struck. She also said 46% of nurses in South Africa also had burnout prior to Covid-19, which meant this was a problem that existed well before Covid-19.
Paruk defined burnout as including emotional exhaustion, feelings of detachment and negative views about the job.
It was not only burnout that was a problem but anxiety as well. Paruk said there was a 15.8% prevalence of anxiety disorders among South African adults.
The figures were even higher for doctors in KZN, where 20% suffered from anxiety disorders.
Anxiety disorders suggested that anxiety for health-care workers was between 10 and 44% during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Paruk also touched on depression, saying there was a 21% prevalence of symptoms in KZN doctors. She said health-care workers could be experiencing high levels of stress.
Paruk said these problems could lead to health-care workers being less professional in their work, their relationships at home being eroded, and engaging in substance abuse.
She said burnout and mental health disorders were often interconnected and could result in negative consequences for the patient, the health-care workers and the institution they work for.
“Health-care workers served the country with courage and made sacrifices and they needed to be taken care of,” Paruk said.
Professor Suvira Ramlall, the clinical head of Psychiatry at UKZN, said there were psycho-social interventions like the Healthcare Workers Care Network which provided resources for health-care workers by health-care workers.
She said this initiative was a national network which included the South African Depression and Anxiety Group, the South African Medical Association and the Psychological Association of South Africa. She helped to provide free therapy for health-care workers, group sessions and a toll-free helpline.
There were workshops for managers to train and equip them to help their health-care workers. Since its launch, the network has received 1 000 calls, 200 SMSes and almost 4 500 attendees.
Ramlall said the problem health-care workers faced was not a local phenomenon but a global problem.
She said there was a reluctance by health-care workers in general to access mental health help.
“This is a problem in a society that prizes IQ over EQ (emotional quotient),” Ramlall said.
Daily News