Introduction: Psychiatric problems, such as stress and anxiety disorders, are encountered amongst healthcare professionals fighting epidemics. Considering that COVID-19 suddenly became a pandemic and healthcare professionals have not had access to sufficient information, it is a fact that healthcare professionals have been affected on a large scale. Heavy workloads, insufficient equipment and anxiety over families increase this impact. We aimed to investigate the extent to which healthcare professionals have been psychologically affected by COVID-19 and related factors.Methodology: Data obtained through questionnaires completed by 348 healthcare professionals working during the COVID-19 pandemic and 350 participants who are in the control group were investigated. The Impact of Event Scale-revised (IES-R) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the Severity Index (ISI) for insomnia were used. Differences regarding gender, occupation, age group, marital status and subgroups were statistically analysed.Results: Of the 348 healthcare professionals, 176 (50.6%) were women and 172 (49.4%) men, while 190 (54.6%) were doctors and 158 (45.4%) nurses. The incidence of PTSD was statistically significantly higher in the healthcare professionals group than in the control group (P < .001). The incidence of PTSD was statistically significantly higher amongst nurses (P = .001), women (P = .002) and those who were married (P = .007).Both PTSD and insomnia were found to be statistically significantly higher amongst those working in the "area of final diagnosis" (P = .016 and P = .002, respectively).
Conclusions:The determination of the groups most affected amongst professionals working in epidemics is important for the planning of in-service training and psychological support studies. If the fight against pandemics includes health teams with strong psychological grounding, it leads to qualified medical care for patients.
What's known• Such psychiatric problems as stress and anxiety disorders are encountered among healthcare professionals struggling against epidemics.
Infertility is defined as not establishing pregnancy in the absence of contraception despite regular sexual intercourse for one year.According to the data of the World Health Organization, 8%-10% of couples have infertility problems and this rate is gradually increasing. 1 For most couples, infertility is a psychological trauma; even described by many couples as the most difficult life experience in their lives. 2 Besides the psychological challenges of infertility, the treatment process also affects couples both psychologically, economically and physically. 3 Additionally, the mental state of the couple acts not only on the process of coping with the treatment procedures but on the pregnancy process and the upcoming parenting processes as well. 4,5 However, it is thought that there is a bidirectional relationship between infertility and psychological factors; infertility and treatment processes affect mental health and mental health has effects on infertility. 3 Nevertheless, a literature review reveals that studies have been conducted mostly to investigate the effects of infertility on mental health and the evidence on the opposite direction is lacking. [6][7][8] Many studies have shown that the two most common psychiatric disorders in infertile patients are anxiety disorders and depression. 9,10 Depression and anxiety in such patients are attributed to subjective feelings of stress, future uncertainty, concerns about treatment processes and techniques, and economic difficulties. 9 Importantly, childhood traumatic experiences may be linked to the development of alexithymia and negative outcomes in depressed subjects. 11,12 The concept of "psychogenic infertility" has a long history in the field of infertility. 13,14 The concern that mental stress could put a possible pregnancy at risk is discomforting not only for women trying to
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