Citation

Shoib S, Arafat SMY, Gupta AK, Ullah I, Turan S. Psychiatr. Danub. 2021; 33(1): 120-121.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Facultas Universitatis Studiorum Zagrabiensis - Danube Symposion of Psychiatry)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has opened a "Pandora box" con- taining a multitude of problems, from physical to psycholo- gical manifestations, and from socioeconomic to the finan- cial aspect (Kumar et al. 2020, Lazzari et al. 2020). Health professionals are the frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, they are supposed to have a maxi- mum risk of getting the infection. Moreover, doctors are having an increased risk of mental health issues due to working in fearful and resources guarded situations, as well as the possibilities of vicarious trauma (Wilson et al. 2020, Menon et al. 2020). There have been 108 doctors in India and 100 doctors of Bangladesh reportedly died from COVID-19.

Violence against the doctor is one of the scariest and under- attended problems during this pandemic especially in deve- loping countries like India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan (Reddy et al. 2019). There have been incidents of physical violence against doctors, harassments, rape threats expulsion from home, and denunciation of burial space to expired doc- tors during this pandemic. Indian medical association repor- ted that more than 75% of doctors are victims of violence with few endings even to death (Lodha et al. 2020). Also, it has been reported in Bangladesh that an angry mob brutally beat physicians that ended up with death. Existing evidence revealed that 50% of violent incidents occur in ICU and almost 70% of incidents are caused by relatives of patients (Bawaskar 2014).

Some responsible factors could be speculated such as acute shortage of ICU beds in hospitals with a long uncertainty of course of COVID-19, delay in attending the COVID-19 patients, and ambiguity of treatment, poor infrastructure, increased emergency, and reduced workforce. Sudden mistrust of health care professionals due to contextual issues such as issuing false COVID-19 report shakes the doctor-patient relationship. Sensational media reporting can further provoke the mindset against doctors. Poor health literacy plays an important role as a distal factor that heralds improper communication...

Language: en