Factors Affecting the Psychological Well-Being of Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Crisis.

Background: Health care workers (HCWs) are a group that especially suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to facing the stress of dealing with patients and social isolation, they had to worry about being infected themselves and transmitting the infection to their families. This study evaluated the fear, anxiety, and depression experienced by HCWs during the COVID-19 crisis.

Public health emergency and psychological distress among healthcare workers: a scoping review.

Background: Pandemics and natural disasters are immensely stressful events for frontline healthcare workers, as they provide patient care to a population undergoing the impacts of the disaster while experiencing such impacts to their personal lives themselves. With increased stressors to an already demanding job, frontline healthcare workers are at a higher risk of adverse effects to their mental health. The current COVID-19 pandemic has already shown to have had significant impact on the mental health of healthcare workers with increased rates of burnout, anxiety and depression.

A week long "pep" talk - initial and 2-3-year longitudinal data on the Ottawa Psychiatry Enrichment Program (OPEP).

Background: Recruitment to psychiatry as a career has been challenging in Canada and abroad despite the known shortage and increasing burden of psychiatric issues globally. Deterrents to choosing psychiatry as a career include its negative stigma and paucity of knowledge about the field. The study goal was to evaluate the Ottawa Psychiatry Enrichment Program (OPEP), a one-week extracurricular program about psychiatry as a career for 1st and 2nd year medical students.

Stigma in Psychiatry: Impact of a Virtual and Traditional Psychiatry Clerkship on Medical Student Attitudes.

Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the change in medical students' attitudes towards psychiatry following a virtual clerkship experience compared to a traditional clerkship experience.

Method: Ninety-seven medical students from the University of Ottawa were assessed pre- and post-clerkship on the ATP-30 (Attitudes Towards Psychiatry-30) measure. Cohorts of students were categorized as pre-COVID or during-COVID depending on when and how they experienced their clerkship (traditional or virtual).

Medications for sleep disturbance in children and adolescents with depression: a survey of Canadian child and adolescent psychiatrists.

Background: Primary care physicians and child and adolescent psychiatrists often treat sleep disturbances in children and adolescents with mood disorders using medications off-label, in the absence of clear evidence for efficacy, tolerability and short or long-term safety. This study is the first to report Canadian data about prescribing preferences and perceived effectiveness reported by child and adolescent psychiatrists regarding medications used to manage sleep disturbances in children and adolescents with depression.

Methods: Canadian child and adolescent psychiatrists were surveyed on their perception of effectiveness of a range of medications commonly prescribed for sleep disturbances, their ranked preferences for these medications, reasons for avoiding certain medications, and perceived side effects.

Child and adolescent psychiatry training and services in the Middle East region: a current status assessment.

Mental health is a key component of health, yet appropriate care is limited. Evidence concerning child and adolescent mental health has predominantly come from western countries, while the Middle East region, with a large youth population, has reported very little on it. This original, cross-sectional study of child and adolescent psychiatry in the Middle East provides an assessment of current postgraduate programs, services and what is needed to build workforce capacity.

Use of M-CHAT for a multinational screening of young children with autism in the Arab countries.

There has been a decline in the mortality rate among infants and children under five years of age in the last decade in many developing countries. This has led to a shift in focus to look beyond survival to the prevention or reduction of impairment and promotion of children's health. With the apparent rise in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the Arab countries the development of an Arabic tool for early diagnosis and intervention was sought as part of an effort to better understand the prevalence of this disorder.