SEATTLE — A new University of Washington Medicine study suggests psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy can reduce burnout and symptoms of depression in healthcare workers.
The study targeted doctors and nurses on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lead investigator Dr. Anthony Back wanted to see if psilocybin could help these healthcare workers through trauma brought on by fighting COVID-19.
“For doctors and nurses, half of doctors report that they’re burned out,” said lead investigator Dr. Anthony Back, an oncologist and palliative care specialist, who teaches at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
As an oncologist, Dr. Back was familiar with the effect the drug had on cancer patients facing their deaths.
“We put up a little study website and sent two tweets,” he said. “In the first month, we had 3000 hits for 30 spots.”
Just under 2,300 finished the application, he said.
Will Koenig, a flight nurse & study participant, said the drug was instrumental in helping him get back on track with his career.
“It’s not micro-dosing,” he said. “It was a large dose.”
Koenig said he was struggling with the emotional toll of caring for patients during COVID-19.
“We took patients a long ways away from home a lot of times,” he said. “That might be the last time they’d ever see their family.”
The psilocybin experience helped him understand the emotions he was feeling in new ways.
Two years later, he said he’s still experiencing the benefits.
“That has only made me better prepared to continue to go on to be a nurse and help other people,” he said. “I don’t know that I could have done that without this treatment.”
Dr. Juan Iregui volunteered in part because he was fascinated with the science. He also struggled with anxiety after treating patients during COVID-19.
“You don’t get used to seeing people who have not a lot of medical conditions, who are young, who die,” he said.
Dr. Iregui said taking the drug allowed him to discover new perspectives about his emotions.
“It’s not something that the medicine does for you,” he said. “It’s something that you discover within yourself.”
The study found that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy resulted in significant reductions in depression among subjects, “measurably greater” than those who received a placebo.
“There is this misconception that we’re just having people see a lot of swirly colors, and then they’ll forget about all their problems,” Dr. Back said. “That is not the case at all.”
Dr. Back said instead, it’s a session where patients can go in to face some of the situations that “broke them” head-on.
The big question still is how often patients will need to receive the treatment.
Dr. Back said he followed subjects for six months and found that “many and most of the people who got a benefit from psilocybin” had maintained it during that time.
“I hope my research can contribute to the development of safe and efficacious ways of really bringing these medicines back into our culture in a way that they can be used responsibly,” he said.