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Health Care Workers: Managing Anxiety in the Midst of Covid

Updated: Feb 3, 2022

Read about anxiety in our health care workers due to the COVID-19 outbreak and how to engage in a fast and efficient therapy technique.




Since 2019, the world has faced a new reality that involved a 360 change in the entire world. Due to the outbreak of the virus, health care centers started to overflood, causing workers to work almost the entire day facing the disease and risking their lives to try and save as many people as possible.


This caused severe cases of anxiety among the majority of workers that continue to suffer the consequences. In this article, you can find useful facts and information about the topic and how to approach therapy to overcome this struggle.


Anxiety Disorder In Health Care Workers


The strike of COVID-19 presented a new paradigm, in which the world had to majorly adopt new ways of prevention and face a tragic saturation of health care centers. When this happened, health care workers were the ones upfront the fire line, trying to treat and care for hundreds of people at the same time while dealing with the shortage of supplies, exhaustion, burnout, and anxiety.


The stress of not only having to work double the huge amount they already do normally, but being near the virus all the time, risking their own lives to save others (which at the beginning nobody paid attention to, and the majority of the population continued to go out and not care about the health threat, contributing to worker’s anxiety) while not receiving a dignified salary all added up and resulted in most health care workers develop Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).


A study published in 2021 by the National Library of Medicine that analyzed this concern concluded that “the study showed a relatively high GAD prevalence, as one of the fundamental psychological problems, among health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, health system managers should implement preventive strategies to protect health staff from contracting the virus, and monitor them for psychological problems, and provide them with supportive measures if necessary.



Treatment For Anxiety In Health Care Workers


A treatment implemented to help health care workers overcome their high anxiety was EMDR therapy, an innovative and nontraditional type of therapy that involves the bilateral movements of the eyes. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is a new psychotherapy technique that provides efficient and fast results with less emotional pain, all performed in a safe and supported space.


EMDR therapy is patient-focused, meaning that apart from a therapist following a standard protocol to perform the treatment, it will also focus its attention on what the person is feeling in that moment, in most cases to help ease pain in a short period. Furthermore, EMDR therapy is different for every individual, and can also be used to treat different kinds of anxiety such as phobias, performance anxiety, and fear of driving.



Final Thoughts

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy presents a new way of treating anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and depression. With its specific approach, patients can see fast and efficient results in little time, which also helps those who have a busy routine and don’t have the time or money to engage in monthly traditional psychology sessions.


Blue Oak offers a free online consultation for those in need of a customized approach and information about this therapy to begin a new path in their life. Here you can schedule yours and receive customized attention.


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Keywords:

  • emdr therapy

  • Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing

  • Anxiety in health care workers


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