The psychological impact of the COVID emergency on Italian nursing homes staff and the efficacy of EMDR

Residential nursing homes were particularly badly affected by the first wave of COVID-19, with large numbers of their fragile residents getting infected with COVID-19 and dying. The staff in these structures were catapulted into a reality very different from what they were used to. They had to adapt the way they used to take care of their patients in a very short space of time and in a scenario that was continually changing.
In this paper we describe the subjective experience of staff in a number of Italian nursing homes during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic; and we report data showing the effectiveness of the EMDR treatment programmes provided to support them during this Pandemic.
Residential nursing homes were particularly badly affected by the first wave of COVID-19, with large numbers of their fragile residents getting infected with COVID-19 and dying. The staff in these structures were catapulted into a reality very different from what they were used to. They had to adapt the way they used to take care of their patients in a very short space of time and in a scenario that was continually changing.
In this paper we describe the subjective experience of staff in a number of Italian nursing homes during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic; and we report data showing the effectiveness of the EMDR treatment programmes provided to support them during this Pandemic.