Patients experiencing chronic pain could improve their self-care by using a novel, digital pain management tool, according to the results of a recent study. The Manage My Pain app was part of a study that included chronic pain participants in both urban and rural pain clinics. Researchers wanted to find out if the app would help with patient care during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in which in-person patient visits dropped to a small percentage overnight.

There now is an open question about whether some people — healthcare workers and the public alike — could experience recurrent COVID-19 symptoms for years. This is the nightmarish world of the so-called “long-haulers,” who have developed a seemingly chronic condition the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention is calling “long COVID.”

Research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on nurses, physicians, and other healthcare workers across the world shows disturbing levels of anxiety, depression, stress, burnout, and suicide. The authors of one study estimate the prevalence of burnout among registered nurses in the United States to range from 35% to 45%.

While hospitals and cities are in crisis mode, hospital nurses, physicians, case managers, and others stay focused on their daily work. But as the crisis period ends and the post-crisis period begins, they face the possibility of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

Half of 1,257 healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients in 34 hospitals in China reported depression, 45% reported anxiety, 34% reported insomnia, and 71.5% reported psychological distress, according to a recent study. These findings point to significant ethical concerns regarding clinicians’ well-being.

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic virus rages in some areas of the United States, there has been marked complacency in others, where public health pleas to stay at home and practice social distancing have been ignored by some.