Rapid evidence assessment of studies focusing on mental health outcomes of pandemics for health care workers 2000-2020

Little is known about what the long-term mental health impact of the covid-19 pandemic will be on health care workers. However, synthesising knowledge from past pandemics can help to anticipate this, along with identifying interventions required, target populations most in need, and at what time points. Accordingly, the aim of collecting this data set (published studies) is to provide a balanced evaluation of what is currently known about mental health impacts of pandemics on HCWs in the short- and long-term, methodological limitations and impact on knowledge claims. The intention is to conduct a rapid evidence assessment using a literary synthesis approach. An extensive search was conducted for studies published in peer-reviewed journals between January 2000 and May 2020. As the mental health outcome of pandemics on health care workers is a multidisciplinary topic, the following databases were used: Cochrane Library, Discover, PsychInfo, PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The search strategy sequence was: 1) mental health outcomes* OR mental OR psychological OR health OR emotional OR social OR costs OR consequences; 2) health care workers* OR healthcare workers OR medical workers OR doctors OR physicians OR nurses OR paramedics; 3) pandemic* OR epidemic OR protracted incident.