JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, psychiatric hospitals all over the world had to adapt their services to the prevailing governmental regulations. As a consequence, home office (HO) and telepsychiatry boomed.

Objective:

To evaluate the potential of HO use, its adoption, and the association of HO use with employees’ mental health in a large Psychiatric University Hospital in Switzerland.

Methods:

Information about the implementation and use of HO were gathered by analyzing routine data and information provided by our IT services. Moreover, a cross-sectional online survey was conducted to assess the employee’s attitudes towards the clinic’s crisis management during the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. Part of this online survey consisted of questions about HO use in the period between March and June 2020, the employees’ attitude towards HO implementation and their mental health. Three mental health measures assessed depressive symptoms, anxiety and stress factors.

Results:

A total of 200 employees completed the online survey. About one third of the employees reported to work at least partially from home (34.5%). HO use differed significantly across the professional groups. Employees experienced no or mild depressive symptoms and anxiety. The number of reported stress factors varied significantly across the HO groups.

Conclusions:

HO appears to be generally feasible in large psychiatric hospitals. However, HO is not equally possible for all professional groups. Professional groups with personal contact to patients and technical or manual tasks have to work onsite. Further evaluation of HO use in psychiatric hospitals up to the development of virtual clinics will follow in future research. In conclusion, the worldwide pandemic served as a stepping stone that should be further used to promote HO use and to take full advantage of HO for employees as well as employers (to improve employees’ work-life balance, to save costs, etc.).