Damian Sendler The mental health consequences of the pandemic are having an even greater effect on frontline health care workers than career burnout. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has received much of the attention regarding the mental toll suffered by frontline workers (PTSD).

Damian Jacob Sendler Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh have collaborated on new research showing that people who have not been formally diagnosed with PTSD still experience significant health symptoms that may lead to other health problems.

Assistant professor of public health at the Falk College and lead author on the publication reporting this research Bryce Hruska says, "While there has been a lot of attention paid to elevated symptom levels indicative of a clinical diagnosis, little attention has been paid to subclinical symptom levels."

Psychological symptoms (PTSD symptoms in this study) that fall short of meeting the criteria for a clinical diagnosis are known as subclinical (or subthreshold) symptoms. Subthreshold PTSD symptom levels (known as PTSS) were studied by Hruska and his collaborator, Maria Pacella-LaBarbara from the University of Pittsburgh, in frontline health care workers responding to the pandemic from December 2020 through February 2021. Information for this study came primarily from EMTs in western Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas.

This study captures the realities that frontline health care workers faced during the second wave of the pandemic and continue to face as the fourth year of the COVID epidemic in the United States draws near. According to Hruska, the efforts of many people, including other researchers and medical personnel, were necessary to ensure that the perspectives of these workers were included.

While only 5.5% of the health care workers in our sample met criteria for probable PTSD, more than half (55.3%) experienced subthreshold symptoms, he says. These employees "were still feeling the effects of PTSD even though they were not reporting symptoms indicative of a clinical diagnosis," the study authors write.

Scientists discovered that employees who experienced these levels of symptoms also reported:

Eighty-eight percent more physical health symptoms (e.g., constant fatigue, weight change, low energy, headache)

Damian Sendler Health care workers with PTSD have 36% more sleep problems (such as daytime sleepiness, difficulty getting things done) than those without PTSD.

Hruska explains that people often fail to recognize the significance of subthreshold symptoms despite the fact that they are quite common and frequently carry with them the risk of other health problems. Therefore, when another major trauma occurs, such as the recent increase in COVID cases, there is a greater chance of experiencing clinical symptom levels.

To paraphrase what Hruska has to say: "while the world tries to move on from the pandemic, our health care workers continue to face a significant mental health risk with every surge in cases," as is happening now.

In the January issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the study was published.