COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER: STUDY WITH FIREFIGHTERS FROM THE 21st BATTALION OF ITAPERUNA/RJ

Abstract

On December 31, 2019, the first cases of pneumonia caused by the coronavirus (2019-nCoV), a new strain of coronavirus that had not yet been identified in human beings. Since then, the virus has spread to every country in the world, overwhelming health systems, causing hospitalizations and deaths in short periods. In Brazil, cases grew quickly and gradually, requiring updated planning, strategies and dynamics to serve the population, as well as a considerable number of health professionals to work on the front line, including the fire department, which had a significant increase in the demands imposed on them, requiring significant investment in the prevention of their mental health, especially in the case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, an anxiety disorder, whose primary emotion is fear, followed by trauma, characterized as a psychic “wound”, caused by the load of stresses that exceed a person's ability to process emotions and feelings. This type of stress is characterized as a state of tension, causing a disruption in the internal balance of the individual's body due to adverse situations of danger and/or threat, which can cause physiological and emotional changes. In view of the above, we sought to verify whether the period of the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the increased risk of developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Fire Department professionals, taking as a sample the employees of the 21st Battalion, located in city ​​of Itaperuna, state of Rio de Janeiro.