L’impatto psicologico dell’epidemia di COVID-19 sugli operatori sanitari nel periodo iniziale dell’emergenza: una breve e rapida revisione sistematica

The outbreak caused by a novel coronavirus (Covid-19) is a newly emerged disease started in Hubei province of China as a cluster of pneumonia cases with unknown aetiology. Due to rapid spread and severity of the infection, on March 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared officially Covid-19 outbreak as a pandemic. In front of this public health concern, medical staff is affected both physically and psychologically. The Covid-19 out-break has caused severe psychological stress, as anxiety, depression, sleep disorders and emotional distress in frontline healthcare workers which were exposed to severe emotional reactions often without psychological support. This review aimed to investigate the existing literature about psychological impact of Covid-19 pandemic on healthcare workers. The literature search was conducted in the following databases: Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycInfo. All types of articles published from March 2020 to the end of April 2020 which were relevant to the issue were searched. A total of 39 articles were se-lected by initial search and 11 of them were included in the final work. PRISMA guidelines were followed. The current review suggests that healthcare workers exposed to the battle against novel coronavirus disease reported considerable levels of depression, anxiety, fear, distress and insomnia. For this reason, it is necessary to highlight that it is essential to pro-vide adequate training and psychological support to medical staff engaged in the emer-gency in order to minimize the risk of chronicizing the reported symptoms.