Impacts of COVID-19 on the mental health of professors at a Cuban medical university.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused millions of infections and deaths, in addition to leaving numerous consequences on the mental health of the population and of the professors in charge of teaching and academic training at medical universities. Objective: To evaluate the main impacts of COVID-19 on the mental health of professors at the University of Medical Sciences of Havana. Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study of an intentional qualitative sample of 324 teachers, who responded to an online survey in Google Forms, validated by 10 experts and distributed through social networks between the months of October and November 2021. Descriptive statistical techniques were used with the SPSS v.25 program. Results: More than half reported fatigue, stress, anxiety, overwhelm, insecurity and discomfort; and more than a third reported high levels of emotional and psychological distress. The impacts of the pandemic on the mental health of the teachers studied evidenced the limited knowledge and emotional skills of the teachers to counteract its effects on the individual level and on the academic training of students. Conclusions: Scientific evidence is provided of the impacts of the pandemic on the mental health of the teachers studied, in addition to the need to train them to develop their emotional competencies, in order to integrate these skills into the academic training of medical students.