Mental Health in Health Workers During the Pandemic in Bogotá: Perspective of Decision Makers from an Interpretative Phenomenological Approach

Introduction and objective: The health emergency caused by COVID-19 presented a context of limited scientific evidence, scarcity of resources, and changes in work routines, for which health workers had to adapt to a transformation of medical practice. This study seeks to know in depth the experiences lived by the health professionals and decision makers of the hospital facing the management of the situations posed by the health emergency of COVID-19. Methods: We conducted qualitative research with a phenomenological interpretative approach. The target population were the decision-making physicians. The tool used was the in-depth open interview. A thematic analysis was carried out according to the author Steiner Kvale, inductive, where an approximation to the interviews was made, finding the preponderant themes in a repeated way, considering them as categories for the analysis. Finally, the information was grouped to carry out its analysis, relating it to the evidence found in the literature. Results: Three emerging categories were identified, the first corresponds to organizational changes during the pandemic, the second was organizational culture and the third was mental health perceived by the participants. Our main results were that much of the stress felt by healthcare workers came from making difficult decisions in a context of uncertainty and scarcity of resources. Also, front line workers identify other risk factors that contributed to generate a negative effect on their mental health reflected in some symptoms of anxiety and depression. However, we also showed that these affectations were addressed with various institutional strategies. Conclusions: Despite the limitation of the national context, collectively developed tools and plans were generated that allowed doctors to free themselves from the burden of situations posed by the health emergency, especially when making decisions, thus reducing risk factors that could threaten their mental health.