Looking after each other in a crisis-Lessons from Novichok and the parallels with Covid-19

In March 2018, three patients were admitted to the Emergency Department of a District General Hospital. Originally suspected of having suffered an opiate overdose, it became clear that they were the victims of anti-cholinesterase poisoning-the Soviet era poison Novichok. Twenty-five days later, two further patients were admitted with the same symptoms. One of these patients died 8 days later and the second remained in hospital for 3 weeks. A Clinical Psychologist was present on the unit throughout the major incident and all staff directly involved received psycho-educational support regarding self-care.

To examine the psychological impact of the longest running major incident in NHS history on the staff directly involved.

A cross-sectional design was used, with structured questionnaires administered retrospectively.

A link to an electronic survey was emailed to every member of staff in the organization. The survey included the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (to both the March and June events).

540/4000 hospital staff responded (13.5% response rate) with a 29/59 (49%) response rate in intensive care staff. Frontline staff had significantly lower scores on anxiety (P < .05 for the June incident), depressive symptoms (P < .05 March and June) and subscales of burnout than managers (depersonalization P < .05). On the remaining two burnout subscales and on anxiety scores for those involved in March, results trended towards significance (P < .1).

Staff in management roles during major incidents may experience higher levels of psychological distress than staff in front line clinical roles and should be encouraged to seek psychological support.

This article informs teams of the psychological impact of major incidents on staff in intensive care settings.