Our research of several doctors of various specialities (n = 72, average age 45.58 ± 10.18 years, a detailed description is available in the 2 previous articles) showed the presence of some mental responses and is accompanied by increasing general anxiety as a result of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic impact. We also identified the negative impact of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on almost all life quality indicators (except social functioning). 43.1 % of doctors experienced emotional difficulties due to SARS-CoV-2, this indicator was positively correlated with the presence and intensity of anxiety symptoms (rs = 0.493; p = 0.01; n = 72 and rs = 0.456; p = 0.01; n = 72, respectively). Assessing SARS-CoV-2 danger level, 69.5 % of doctors considered it high, 4.2 % — extremely high, 19.4 % — exaggerated, and 6.9 % — low.
Coping strategies that were significantly more common in doctors experiencing emotional difficulties due to SARS-CoV-2 («Search for social support» (rs = 0.349; p = 0.01; n = 72) and «Escape-avoidance» (rs = 0.290; p = 0.05; n = 72)) were considered by us as insufficiently effective, in contrast to «Confrontational coping» (rs = 0.235; p = 0.05; n = 72). Thus, we found that the basis of mental adaptation disorders of doctors who are actively coping with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic situation is a stereotyped personal response, aimed primarily at reducing emotional discomfort but not at resolving the problem situation.
We continued to consider doctors’ mental responses to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic situation in the context of possible psychotherapeutic and psycho-corrective effects.
We conducted k-means clustering (Table 1) for more complete assessment of the impact of coping strategies on mental responses.
We can see based on the data obtained that indicators (final cluster centres) of group 1 are mostly lower than the standard interval of 40–60 T-points, while in group 2 they correspond to it, which indicates good adaptability of most doctors. If we also take into account the initial cluster centres, we can talk about two groups of doctors who passively or actively cope with the stressful impact of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (selection variables were the presence of emotional difficulties connected with COVID-19, the level of anosognosia, the intensity of anxiety on the Hamilton scale).