‘Outbreak distress’: Characterising moral distress among international healthcare workers responding to mpox

In May 2022, a global outbreak of mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) was declared an international public health emergency. During this time, healthcare workers scrambled to respond to the outbreak amidst a lack of resources, knowledge gaps and pressures related to COVID-19. This period posed a risk of heightened moral distress, defined as distress arising from a situation in which a healthcare worker knows the right thing to do but is externally constrained from doing so. An international survey of healthcare workers was developed to understand their experiences of responding to mpox, including open-text questions regarding moral distress. Drawing on thematic analysis of these open text responses, this paper conceptualises the forms of distress experienced by health workers as 'outbreak distress'-an emotional and psychological response to the synergistic effects that arise from stressed systems, uncertainty and stigma that characterise many, and especially new, infectious disease outbreaks. In the context of pandemic preparedness, outbreak distress represents a novel concept for understanding additional pressures on healthcare systems in future unknown and re-emerging outbreaks.