Introduction:

Emergency medical personnel are extremely exposed to stressful situations. Post-traumatic stress disorder is an emerging pathology in health personnel in recent years and is only recognized as a mental illness of an occupational nature.

Objective:

To establish the prevalence and symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder obtained from the screening with the checklist of post-traumatic stress disorder for DSM-5 applied to health personnel from the emergency unit of a tertiary hospital during the SARS-CoV-pandemic. 2.

Material and Method:

Retrospective, observational, cross-sectional, single-center study in the (5) professional and non-professional levels, between the period April 2021 to December 2022.

Results:

241 officials participated (69.45% of this emergency unit). Where, 19.9% presented symptoms of post-traumatic stress, broken down into 36.0% service assistant, 26.7% kinesiology, 26.1% higher level nursing technician, 13.3% nursing and 9.8% doctors. The greatest symptomatology corresponded to intrusive memories, intense psychological discomfort, reckless-self-destructive behavior and hypervigilance. Likewise, the higher the job seniority and the auxiliary levels, kinesiology increase the probability of a high score in the screening (risk variables), while at an older age it decreases (protective variable). 29.46% were linked to mental health care after the screening.

Discussion:

The study identified and characterized a representative group from the emergency unit who presented post-traumatic stress symptoms during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. A permanent psychological support network could be an effective promotion intervention in mental health.

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