A digital system for assessing psychoemotional stress, mental and cognitive abilities in personnel engaged in high-stress professional activities (medical staff)

Objective. To create a digital model of professional burnout syndrome (PBS) and dynamics of its main manifestations in healthcare workers undergoing combined physiotherapy. Material and methods. The study enrolled 50 healthcare workers (25 ones with PBS and 25 somatically healthy ones without PBS). Respondents with PBS underwent basic correction including physical exercises: daily 30-minute therapeutic gymnastics (combination of aerobic and strength exercises under supervision of instructor) supplemented by four physiotherapy techniques: general magnetotherapy, general cryotherapy, hyper-hypoxic therapy (HHT), and hydrogen therapy. Physiotherapy methods were applied in an alternating manner: general cryotherapy+hydrogen therapy on one day and general magnetotherapy+HHT on the next day. Total duration of treatment was 4 weeks. We assessed the results of therapeutic physical factors considering various psychometric tests, serum cortisol, glucose, and non-esterified fatty acids, oxidative stress index and heart rate variability. Results. Correlation and discriminant analyses revealed three parameters (PSM-25 scores of psychological stress, MoCA scores of cognitive functions and emotional intelligence test), which verified the diagnosis of PBS in 96% of cases. These indicators predict the effectiveness of combined physiotherapy with high confidence, taking into account their predictive significance. Conclusion. An extended version of parametric and nonparametric statistical methods significantly reduces the number of indicators characterizing psychoemotional stress, cognitive, and mental abilities of patients with PBS, time and financial resources required for diagnostic procedures. The identified parameters can be used as relatively simple components of a digital system for assessing psychometric characteristics of professional burnout syndrome and can be recommended for evaluating the effectiveness of treatment.