Impacto psicológico del COVID-19 en una muestra de profesionales sanitarios españoles / Psychological impact of COVID-19 on a sample of Spanish health professionals

INTRODUCCIÓN: Tras declararse en marzo de 2020 el brote por el virus COVID-19 pandemia mundial, se decretó el estado de alarma en España. En esta situación, el personal sanitario está viviendo altos niveles de estrés por la sobrecarga de trabajo y las condiciones de este. El objetivo del presente estudio fue evaluar los factores que pueden desestabilizar la salud mental de dichos profesionales en nuestro contexto. MATERIALES Y MÉTODOS: La muestra estuvo compuesta por 421 profesionales de la salud. Los datos se recogieron mediante un cuestionario online que se les envió a través del correo electrónico. Se empleó el DASS-21 para evaluar las variables de ansiedad, estrés y depresión, y la EAI para medir las dificultades con el sueño. Además, se recogieron otras variables descriptivas de la muestra que podrían estar relacionadas con estos niveles de sintomatología psicológica. RESULTADOS: Los resultados muestran que la pandemia del COVID-19 ha generado entre el personal sanitario síntomas de estrés, ansiedad, depresión e insomnio, con mayores niveles entre las mujeres y profesionalesde más edad. Variables como haber estado en contacto con el virus o el miedo en el trabajo, desencadenaron una mayor sintomatología. CONCLUSIONES: En esta situación crítica, el colectivo de profesionales se sitúa en primera línea, por lo que está expuesto directamente determinados riesgos y estresores. Esto contribuye a que desarrollen sintomatología psicológica diversa. Consecuentemente, se recomienda ofrecerles ayuda psicológica para reducir el impacto emocional del COVID-19, y asegurar así, no sólo su salud mental, sino también el adecuado cuidado que dispensan

INTRODUCTION: After the outbreak of the COVID-19 was considered a global pandemic in March 2020, the state of alarm was declared in Spain. In this situation, health professionals are experiencing high levels of stress due to the overload of work the pandemic is generating and the conditions in which they are working. The aim of this study was to evaluate the factors that can destabilize the mental health of these professionals in our context. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The sample was composed of 421 health professionals. The data were gathered by an online questionnaire sent to them by e-mail. The DASS-21 was used to assess anxiety, stress and depression, and the EAI to measure sleep difficulties. In addition, other descriptive variables that could be related to psychological symptomatology were collected from the sample. RESULTS: The results show that the COVID-19 pandemic has generated symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia among health workers, with higher levels among women and older professionals. Some factors such ashaving been in contact with the virus or fear at work, triggered greater symptomatology. CONCLUSIONS: In this critical situation, professionals are in the front line and therefore, are directly exposed to certain risks and stressors. This contributes to the development of diverse psychological symptoms. Consequently, it is recommended to offer them psychological help in order to reduce the emotional impact of the COVID-19, and thus, to ensure not only the mental health of our health professionals, but alsothe adequate care they provide

Investigating strength and frequency effects in recognition memory using type-2 signal detection theory.

Criterion- versus distribution-shift accounts of frequency and strength effects in recognition memory were investigated with Type-2 signal detection receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, which provides a measure of metacognitive monitoring. Experiment 1 demonstrated a frequency-based mirror effect, with a higher hit rate and lower false alarm rate, for low frequency words compared with high frequency words. In Experiment 2, the authors manipulated item strength with repetition, which showed an increased hit rate but no effect on the false alarm rate. Whereas Type-1 indices were ambiguous as to whether these effects were based on a criterion- or distribution-shift model, the two models predict opposite effects on Type-2 distractor monitoring under some assumptions. Hence, Type-2 ROC analysis discriminated between potential models of recognition that could not be discriminated using Type-1 indices alone. In Experiment 3, the authors manipulated Type-1 response bias by varying the number of old versus new response categories to confirm the assumptions made in Experiments 1 and 2. The authors conclude that Type-2 analyses are a useful tool for investigating recognition memory when used in conjunction with more traditional Type-1 analyses.

Exploration of vertical bias in perceptual completion of illusory contours: Threshold measures and response classification.

We investigated whether the perceptual completion of illusory contours exhibits a vertical bias (J. Pillow & N. Rubin, 2002). Experiments 1-3 measured completion with Pillow and Rubin's shape discrimination procedure, while including novel control conditions to determine if the results were related to perceptual completion per se. These experiments found no evidence for perceptual completion with stimuli used by Pillow and Rubin but did find completion with smaller stimuli that had larger support ratios. However, even when perceptual completion occurred, there was no evidence for a vertical bias in perceptual completion. Experiments 4-5 used the response classification method (B. L. Beard & A. Ahumada, 1998) to determine which local areas were related to illusory contour discrimination in central and peripheral vision. For central stimuli, there was a slight bias favoring completion of vertical contours, although the extent of the bias varied across participants. There was no vertical bias for peripheral stimuli. Overall, although subject to several important caveats, the results obtained with classification images (but not threshold measures) were consistent with the Pillow and Rubin's idea that perceptual completion is more difficult when it requires integrating visual features that are on different sides of the vertical meridian.

Medida de la sensibilidad en experimentos de vigilancia: consecuencias estadísticas del uso de índices basados en la teoría de detección de señales / Vigilance and Signal Detection Theory

Este artículo examina si el decremento de sensibilidad que frecuentemente se observa en tareas de vigilancia puede estar afectado por el índice o estadístico utilizado para medir la sensibilidad. Informamos de los resultados de un estudio de simulación de dicho decremento utilizando dos medidas de sensibilidad: d' y A'. Los resultados de estas simulaciones indican que el decremento es algo mayor con d' que con A' y que la probabilidad de que dicho decremento resulte significativo en un análisis de varianza de los datos es también mayor para d' que para A'. (AU)