Frontline workers are up to ten times more likely to suffer from depression and four times more likely to struggle with anxiety than the general population pre-COVID.
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A report by Charles Sturt University has found that the pressures of working in a COVID environment are pushing those in frontline professions to breaking point.
Police, paramedics, a group of community nurses and child protection workers were part of the survey.
Of the 1500 respondents surveyed in September and October 2020, 40 per cent said they were seriously considering leaving their jobs altogether.
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Associate professor in the school of business at the Charles Sturt Thurgoona campus Larissa Bamberry said high levels of burnout were ubiquitous among study participants.
"We saw really quite significant numbers of participants saying that not only were they burnt out and exhaustedm they were sick and tired of the job," she said.
"We looked at things within burnout, such as employee engagement, personal efficacy or sense of accomplishment in their work.
"There was also the aspect of engagement with their clients and depersonalisation, so whether they were actually still thinking of their clients as people or if they were quite disengaged. We saw relatively high levels of that in that population."
During border closures Professor Bamberry said police and paramedics were often drafted into areas they were unfamiliar with and provided with little support.
"Amongst the police and paramedics working on the border areas, that was a real shock for them," she said.
"It increased their workload and particularly police were sent from the metropolitan areas and they struggled because they didn't know the region very well.
"They felt they didn't have enough support and that was something that came through very clearly."
Secretary of the Victorian Ambulance Union Danny Hill said the finding of the report came as no surprise to members.
"Our members have really never worked harder and a lot of members who have been in the career for a long time are saying it's the busiest it's ever been," he said.
"It's not surprising that we see a lot of them burning out."
The report also proposed a proactive, rather than reactive approach to frontline worker mental health issues.
"A lot of the workplaces had strong systems for dealing with mental health issues when they happened, but they weren't as conscious as preventing workplace injury," Professor Bamberry said.
"Making sure they have systems in place before, rather than solving the problem after it's come up."
