The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of the worldwide population. Citizens suffer the social, economic, physiological, and psychological effects of this pandemic. Primary sources, scientific articles, and secondary bibliographic indexes, databases, and web pages were used for a consensus critical review. The method was a narrative review of the available literature to summarize the existing literature addressing mental health concerns and stressors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The main search engines used in the present research were PubMed, SciELO, and Google Scholar. We found the pandemic has had a direct impact on psychopathologies such as anxiety, increasing its ratios, and depression. Other syndromes such as burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder have increased with the pandemic, showing a larger incidence among medical personnel. Moreover, eating disorders and violence have also increased. Public authorities must prepare healthcare systems for increasing incidences of mental pathologies. Mental health apps are one of the tools that can be used to reach the general population.

Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion and caused by exposure to excessive and prolonged stress related to job conditions. Moreover, burnout is highly prevalent among health care professionals. The aim of this study is, first, to examine the mediating role of social support over the effect of burnout in health care professionals and, second, to explore potential gender differences. A convenience sample of 1,035 health professionals from Ecuador, including 608 physicians and 427 nurses (68% women, with and age M = 40 + 9 years old), was surveyed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Social Support Survey (MOS), and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) as measures of burnout, social support, and general health, respectively. Social support was found to mediate the negative effects of burnout on health regardless of gender. Differences across the three dimensions of burnout and health are further discussed, along with their implications for designing effective burnout interventions for health care professionals in Ecuador.