Anxiety and Perceived Stress among Physicians Working at Cairo University Hospitals Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly become a major worldwide health problem. Understanding the negative psychological sequalae on working physicians either front liners or not, can reserve psychological resilience for future disease outbreaks. Aim of the study: to explore the degree of anxiety and perceived stress in junior and mid senior physicians working at Cairo University Hospitals amid the COVID 19 pandemic. Methodology: This was an online based cross-sectional study done from April to May 2021. A total of 208 physicians working at Cairo University hospitals were asked to fill in Google forms including sociodemographic and clinical data beside two reliable tools to assess anxiety using the generalized anxiety disorder questionnaire (GAD) and perceived stress using the perceived stress scale (PSS). The individual domains and the total scores were calculated then compared with the different sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Results: Most of the participants were females (66.3%), single (66.8%), not previously infected with COVID-19 (63.5%) and not included in the care of COVID 19 patients (64.9%). The mean GAD total score was 8.99±5.58 with 57.7% of the participants suffering mild to moderate anxiety. The mean PSS score was 20.76±5.3 with 80.3% found to have moderate stress. Except for the relation between gender and perceived stress (p value= 0.003), and the relation between psychiatric illness and perceived stress (p value=0.026), there was no statistical significance between anxiety and perceived stress from one side and sociodemographic and clinical data from the other side. Conclusion: Anxiety and perceived stress among physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic is considered high regardless of the different sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Key words: COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety, perceived stress, physicians