AUTHOR=van den Broek Anneloes , van Hoorn Louise , Tooten Yvette , de Vroege Lars 

TITLE=The moderating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental wellbeing of health care workers on sustainable employability: A scoping review

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1067228

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1067228

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=Sustainable employability (SE) amongst healthcare workers (HCW's) is an important asset for healthcare institutions. However, SE is under pressure due to high work pressure, shortage of employees and absenteeism amongst employees based on mental problems. These developments had already started before the COVID-19 pandemic.  The aim of this review is to investigate whether there is a moderating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental well-being of HCW’s in the context of SE. A double blinded systematic review was conducted for this article in accordance with preferred reporting items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Eligible studies were subjected to quality evaluation and narrative synthesis. The analysis of the selected literature led to the understanding that mental problems amongst HCW’s were already abundantly present before the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health problems have increased in prevalence, severity, and variation. Plus there’s overall a negative relation between (mental) health and SE. The findings show that mental health problems have much impact on the SE of HCW: absenteeism has increased and perspective on work has changed. It’s time to prioritize mental health of HCW’s to prevent acute care capacity from declining even further and ending up in a vicious circle.