More than half of Utah health workers report COVID-related mental illness

Excessive alcohol use, insomnia and depression are the leading mental health problems facing Utah healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients in the Mountain West, according to a new study released recently by scientists at University of Utah Health. Researchers surveyed 571 frontline workers, including emergency responders, nurses and doctors. Of those surveyed, 56 percent screened positive for at least one mental health disorder.

“I think the experience of being a front-line responder right now is a complicated one,” said Dr. Andrew Smith, a clinical psychologist, the study’s senior author and director of the University of Utah Health Occupational Trauma Program at Huntsman Mental Health Institute.

“I think the big word that surrounds all of this is kind of burnout,” Smith said. “Switching gears from that heightened stress and threat day after day back to sort of the daily family life is a really complicated task for people biologically. We see that the rates for emergency responders, in particular, look like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina rates.

“Having direct contact with patients wasn’t necessarily causing an increase in anxiety, depression or PTSD. But it was causing homeopathic ways of coping,” Smith said. “And one of those would be drinking alcohol.”

Surprisingly, health care workers in the study felt less anxious as they treated more COVID-19 patients.

“You move from sort of this anxious anticipation phase to this phase of being grounded in the mission and grounded in the work,” Smith said.

Smith also emphasized that not everyone develops mental health disorders. Many prove resilient. Not because things aren’t difficult but because they find a healthy way to manage. “We’re really interested in folks who struggled at times and were able to bounce back and what was it about them that made them able to do that,” he said. “I don’t know what the solution to it is yet, but studying it is certainly a step in the right direction.”