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Background: Workplace violence against healthcare workers and especially doctors are now clearly taken as a rapidly rising health problem in Sudan with great political and legal concerns. The current study was aimed at exploring the prevalence of verbal and physical workplace violence, the major factors associated with it, and its consequences reported by medical staff in Khartoum, Sudan government hospitals in 2020. Methods: This cross-sectional study utilized self-administered questionnaires to collect data on aspects of workplace violence against doctors working in the government hospitals of Khartoum, Sudan. A nine-item self-reported workplace violence scale was used. An online survey of self-reported work-related violence exposure during the preceding 12 months was sent to conveniently selected doctors. In total, 387 doctors completed the questionnaire in 2020. Data were analyzed using the SPSS version 26. Results: One hundred and ninety five (50%) respondents reported they were victims of violence in the previous 12 months; 92% of them experienced nonphysical violence; while female doctors were more likely to experience this type of violence (67%), younger respondents <30 years of age were more likely to encounter violent episodes. Results show an association between exposure to physical violence and working at an emergency department. The assailants were mostly males in the age group of 19–35 years (70.2%), most of them were under no influence (60.8%). Conclusion: Approximately one in every two doctors had experienced some degree of violence, either physical or nonphysical or both, and it was negatively reflected on their psychological status as well as their work performance.

Abstract Background: The 2019 novel corona virus (COVID-19) is highly contagious with pandemic transmission, so it is associated with severe health problems and high public anxiety, with healthcare community speculation to be the most distressed because they were at the highest risk of infection. This study aimed to investigate the psychological impact on frontline medical staff in Khartoum state, Sudan, during the COVID‑19 outbreak between January and March 2020 Material and Methods: Patient Health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), generalized anxiety Disorders (GAD-7) scale and the revised impact of event scale (IES-R) were used to assess the depression, anxiety and psychological impact of COVID-19 on participants respectively, by an online questionnaire, analyzed by the statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 24. Results: PHQ-9 depression Scale showed that 72% have some degree of depression with mild depression being the most common seen in 96 (24.2%), severe depression was found to be more among age group between 45-65 and was associated with working in the emergency room (ER), p value was 0.03.The post-traumatic stress disorder among our participants was assessed by the IES-R scale which revealed 67 (16.9%) having mild PTSD, 32 (8.1%) having moderate PTSD,75 (18.9%) having severe PTSD while with statistical association with male gender with (P value= 0.16), age group of 45-65 (P value= 0.03), working in the respiratory wards (P value of 0.039) and history of contact with a positive case of COVID 19, (P value= 0.0001). We used GAD 7anxiety score showed mild anxiety in 32 participants (23.2%) moderate anxiety in 53 (13.4%) and severe anxiety 66 (16.7%). Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of vigor organizational support in predicting and managing health workers symptoms of burnout, and the working conditions they face during novel times of crisis. Keywords: COVID-19, Psychological impact, Health workers, Sudan, GAD-7, PHQ-9, IES-R

Background:In general, the emergence of new technologies such as the internet, social networks and providing opportunities to facilitate and improve global communications quality have created some threats, as Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), which is an emerging psychological problem across the globe. Young defined it as “an individual’s inability to control his or her use of the internet, which eventually causes psychological, social, school, and/or work difficulties in a person’s life”. Students are among the most critical internet and social networks, particularly during the coronavirus recent pandemic. The prevalence of internet addiction and its association with academic performance among Sudanese medical students has not been discussed yet. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the effects of internet addiction on medical students’ academic performance. Methods:This study was an observational descriptive cross-sectional study conducted on medical students at Omdurman Islamic University in Sudan from 321 sample size by stratified random technique. Data were collected using a questionnaire that contains four sections; the last one is the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), a 20-item scale that measures the presence and severity of internet addiction, developed by Young. Data were analyzed using the statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 24. A P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results:Out of 321 medical students, 186 (57.9%) were females, and 135 (42.1%) were males, with no general differences regarding the addiction score. Social media was the leading platform for internet use purposes (88%), mean internet addiction score was 47.7; most of the respondents (55.8%) fit into the moderate-level addiction. There is an association between the duration of internet time consumption and the IAT score, with 5-6 hour/day scoring the highest (mean 50.1 ± 14.3) (P-value 0.001). There is a significant association between platforms that consume most of the participant time and IAT score, with games scoring the highest (IAT mean 56.4 ± 15) (P-value 0.001). There is an insignificant negative correlation between Internet Addiction Test (IAT) grade and CGPA (p-value 0.07).Conclusion:The mean internet addiction score is 47.7, and most of the respondents (55.8%) show moderate-level addiction. The Internet Addiction Test’s application to medical students’ sample concerning the academic performance found no significant association between Internet Addiction Test score and CGPA score.

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