Loneliness and not living alone is what impacted on the healthcare professional’s mental health during the COVID‐19 outbreak in Spain

Cabello, María; Izquierdo, Ana; Leal, Itziar

The present study is aimed at exploring the role of loneliness in the healthcare professionals’ mental health during the COVID‐19 outbreak in Spain. A total of 1,421 healthcare professionals who were in contact with at least one positive COVID‐19 patient participated in a cross‐sectional online survey from April to June 2020. Mental health was measured with the General Health Questionnaire‐12, and loneliness was assessed with the 3‐item UCLA Loneliness Scale. More than 80% of participants showed a certain prone to experience mental health problems, and 90% felt that they had not enough workplace protective measures to manage COVID‐19 patients. Presence of loneliness was positively related to higher mental health problems after controlling for other covariates. Other factors related to higher mental health problems were a higher COVID‐19 risk perception, being in quarantine, checking COVID‐19‐related news several times a day and having a lower training on managing infectious diseases. Neither living alone, nor supervisor social support, were related to healthcare professionals' mental health. Results suggest that the impact of COVID‐19 in terms of mental health in the healthcare professionals could be more related to subjective appraisals of social isolation rather than to be physically alone. There were also a variety of cognitive, behavioural and training‐related factors that were associated with the healthcare professionals’ mental health, and that should be potentially managed in the mental healthcare interventions.