Mental wellbeing of frontline healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic in Qatar

Abstract

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) began with initial cases in China in December 2019 and by January 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 11 March, 2020 n.d.). In the current pandemic concerns about vulnerability of healthcare workers was reported (Lai et al., 2020; Rajkumar, 2020). This is no different from research studies from previous epidemics, where healthcare workers exposed to the frontlines were reported to be vulnerable to poor mental health outcomes. The editorial of this journal (Tandon, 2020) reiterated the importance of health care systems identifying vulnerable groups and creating mitigation strategies to ensure psychological wellbeing of its health care workers.