Philippine E-Journals

Lived Experiences of Mental Health Service Frontliners Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

Christian Khiel Unto | Claudia Jumelle Quinto | Rhoda Ortiz | Christine Miles Peralta | Charmaine Pineda | Elvira David

Discipline: Education

 

Abstract:

While there’s an abundant literature describing the experiences of medical frontliners amidst the pandemic, there is a dearth of studies pertaining to the experiences of mental health frontliners. This study aims to explore the lived experiences of mental health service providers who cater psychological services to COVID-19 patients and survivors. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), this study extracted seven central meanings from the interview responses of eight mental health frontliners. The central meanings are 1) Experiencing Mental Health Concerns; 2) Challenges in Delivery of Online Mental Health Services; 3) Aggravating Concerns in the Profession; 4) Bolstering Personal and Professional Development; 5) Personal and Professional; 6) Adjustments to Pandemic-Related Frustrations; and 7) Social Support as Primary Way of Coping. The mental health concerns experienced by the participants are seemingly affected by the difficulty they experience in delivering online psychological services and their lack of resources and workforce to effectively do so. The participants’ social support and the adjustments they made in the personal and professional lives allowed them to navigate through the problems brought by the pandemic. Eventually, participants bolstered their personal and professional development which also helped them to better address the problems they encountered in their personal lives and in their line of profession.