Depression, Death Anxiety, and the Related Factors in Nurses Caring for COVID-19 Patients at Kosar Hospital, Semnan, Iran

Abstract

Background: The high incidence of COVID-19 has provided a challenge for healthcare systems in Iran, and may result in some psychological problems. Objectives: The study aims at describing depression, death anxiety, and the related factors in nurses caring for COVID-19 Patients at Kosar Hospital, Semnan, Iran. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 89 nurses caring for COVID-19 patients were selected in October 2020 via the census method. A demographic questionnaire, Beck’s Depression inventory, and Templer Death Anxiety scale were used to collect the required data. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software version 20. Results: The mean scores of death anxiety and depression among nurses were 7.32 ± 1.75 and 10.82 ± 8.50 respectively. The results of the Pearson’s correlation-coefficient showed a significant positive correlation between death anxiety and depression (P = 0.05), death anxiety and nurses’ age (P < 0.05), death anxiety, and nurses’ work experience (P < 0.05). Conclusions: The findings of the study revealed that nurses caring for COVID-19 patients are at high risk of death anxiety and depression. Thus, there is a need to identify these problems to prevent or reduce them with effective interventions.

Spiritual health and death anxiety in nursing students during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study

“…Similar findings were reported by Rouhi et al, (2015) [46], Tavakkoli et al, (2021) [47], and Aghajani et al, (2010) [18]. In contrast, Nobahar et al,'s (2021) study demonstrated a relationship between death anxiety and age contrary to the present study [48].…”

“…This discrepancy may stem from differences in the age of study subjects, cultural influences, and the research environment. No statistically significant relationships were found between death anxiety and other qualitative demographic variables, including marital status, education level, and the occurrence of a family member's earth's disease, aligning with the findings of Nobahar et al, (2021) [48]. The study underscores the importance of training, evaluating the effectiveness of educational processes, and conducting needs assessments to enhance the quality-of-care services [5].…”

Health anxiety, death anxiety and coronaphobia: Predictors of postpartum depression symptomatology during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The rate of death anxiety in this sample is 62.7%, with other research also reporting high rates, such as 53.2% in China in the general population ( Zhang et al., 2020 ) or 80% in physicians in Latin America ( Indacochea –Cáceda et al., 2021 ). The high levels of PPD symptoms, health anxiety and death anxiety found in this study, coupled with the fact that previous research has found that depression is associated with both health anxiety ( Kibbey et al., 2021 ; Uçar et al., 2015 ;) and death anxiety ( Nobahar et al., 2021 ; Semenova and Stadtlander, 2016 ), suggest that both are a vulnerability factor for postpartum psychological distress.…”

“…Furthermore, for mothers, there is an additional level of vulnerability caused by pregnancy and childbirth, for example, research suggests that mothers who have just given birth have a shattered sense of self-esteem ( Hutchinson and Cassidy, 2021 ), while the COVID-19 pandemic seriously limited personal interactions, encouraged social distancing, and discouraged new mothers from engaging in close interpersonal relationships. As death anxiety is associated with depression ( Nobahar et al., 2021 ; Semenova and Stadtlander, 2016 ) and as women tend to manifest higher death anxiety than men ( Wong, 2012 ), this increases in death anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic may put mothers at increased risk for PPD symptomatology. Furthermore, literature shows significant negative correlations between death anxiety and wellbeing ( Mansori et al., 2018 ).…”

“…The current study aimed to (1) examine the levels of PPD symptoms, death, health, and coronavirus anxiety and (2) identify some of the predictors of PPD symptoms in Romanian postpartum mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on previous studies conducted in the general population ( Kibbey et al., 2021 ; Enea et al., 2021a ; Nobahar et al., 2021 ), we hypothesized that death and health anxiety would be significantly associated with coronavirus-related anxiety and that all three forms of anxiety would be significant predictors of PPD symptomatology in our samples of Romanian mothers during the postpartum period.…”