Observational Study
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World J Psychiatry. Jun 19, 2022; 12(6): 843-859
Published online Jun 19, 2022. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v12.i6.843
Dimensions of emotional distress among Brazilian workers in a COVID-19 reference hospital: A factor analytical study
Marcos O Carvalho-Alves, Vitor A Petrilli-Mazon, Andre R Brunoni, Andre Malbergier, Pedro Fukuti, Guilherme V Polanczyk, Euripedes C Miguel, Felipe Corchs, Yuan-Pang Wang
Marcos O Carvalho-Alves, Vitor A Petrilli-Mazon, Andre R Brunoni, Andre Malbergier, Pedro Fukuti, Guilherme V Polanczyk, Yuan-Pang Wang, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo 05403-010, Brazil
Marcos O Carvalho-Alves, Felipe Corchs, Program in Neuroscience and Behavior, Department of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo 01060-970, Brazil
Euripedes C Miguel, Department and Institute of Psychiatry, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo 05403-010, Brazil
Felipe Corchs, Department of Psychiatry, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo 05403-010, Brazil
Author contributions: Carvalho-Alves MO, Brunoni AR, Malbergier A, Fukuti P, Polanczyk GV, Miguel EC and Corchs F contributed to the study design, data acquisition and interpretation, and revised the manuscript; Wang YP conceived the statistical analysis; Carvalho-Alves MO, Petrilli-Mazon VA, Corchs F and Wang YP conducted the statistical analysis and wrote the preliminary draft; all authors reviewed and approved the manuscript in its final version.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the National Research Ethics Commission of the Ministry of Health, Brazil.
Informed consent statement: All study participants gave their informed consent before study inclusion.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest in this work.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yuan-Pang Wang, MD, MSc, PhD, Research Scientist, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Rua Dr. Ovídio Pires de Campos, 785, Cerqueira César, Sao Paulo 05403-010, Brazil. gnap_inbox@hotmail.com
Received: December 21, 2021
Peer-review started: December 21, 2021
First decision: March 13, 2022
Revised: April 22, 2022
Accepted: May 13, 2022
Article in press: May 13, 2022
Published online: June 19, 2022
Processing time: 174 Days and 11 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Although the literature contains many reports on the deteriorating mental health of hospital workers during pandemics, few investigations have focused on the core mental health needs of this specific population. Hence, we subjected the common emotional symptoms of hospital workers to exploratory factor analysis. The main emotional dimensions were avoidance and re-experience, depression-anxiety, and sleep changes. Institutional support was found to be the most relevant protective factor for these emotional dimensions. This investigation could contribute to a better understanding of work-related distress from a dimensional perspective and has indicated comprehensive coping strategies in healthcare settings during a public health emergency.