Exploring Risk Factors of Psychological Distress among Chinese Medical Workforce

Abstract

As the pioneer in responding COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, many problems were exposed in the health system, which was concealed and neglected before the pandemic, especially mental health wellness among health workers. This paper focused on the risk factor in the health work environment, to find the external reasons for health workers as this is the most obvious and examinable way to target the association. Different risk factors in the Chinese health workplace indicated one risk factor which influences health workers in one circumstance, could also exist in other contexts. In conclusion, there is not only one risk factor associated with mental health problems, but various factors work together to trigger the bad influence. The suggestion is to pay more attention to health workers mental health wellness by monitoring their mental health status constantly, therefore, implement the intervention timely. Research and policy reviews are required for providing health workers with better circumstances, to support and sustain their mental health and well-being. Further studies are required in the Chinese rural context, as there are more challenging treatments that still require the intervention of medical professionals, and the risk factors present in remote areas may be different from those in urban medicine, so the reasons for affecting the mental health of medical staff may be different.