Impact on mental health in residents of three medical specialization programs at the University of Valparaiso during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: COVID-19 pandemic disturbed mental health of healthcare personnel. Residents of the specialization programs could be at risk, since they were reassigned in their functions. Aim: To describe the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on symptoms of depression, stress, anxiety and resilient coping in residents of Anesthesiology, Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine Material and Methods: Residents were invited to answer an online survey containing the DASS-21 scale for anxiety, stress and depression symptoms and the Brief Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS) for resilience skills. Results: Fifty four out of 90 residents answered the survey. Eighteen to 24% of respondents had symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress at severe and extremely severe levels. Those with severe and extremely severe symptoms had also the lowest score on the BRCS resilience scale. We did not find an association between severity of symptoms and gender. Discussion: A proportion of respondent residents had severe psychological symptoms and lower resilience scores during the COVID-19 pandemic.