The anxiety in healthcare workers and other populations due to the spread of COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has created threats and risks not only for the physical but also for people’s mental health. To date, there is not enough scientific data on anxiety, depressive states of medical workers who do not directly interact with infected people but who work under conditions of new coronavirus infection. Aim of the study is to evaluate anxiety experiences in healthcare workers who do not interact directly with COVID-19 patients and those working in other fields during the coronavirus pandemic. Material and methods. As part of the study, authors carried out online monitoring of anxiety experiences in medical workers who are not working on the front line with COVID-19 patients and other population groups in the context of the coronavirus pandemic (102 participants, including 32 men, 70 women). The average age of the subjects was 38.9 [24.5; 64.7]. Results. A survey of two groups: medical workers who do not interact directly with COVID-19 patients (group I, n = 55) and who work in other fields (group II, n = 47), revealed the highest level of reactive and personal anxiety in the medical group workers (the results are statistically significant, the level of significance is p ≤ 0.05). Discussion. Our results on medical workers’ high anxiety make it possible to classify medical workers who directly work with the sick as a risk group and medical workers who do not interact directly with them. Conclusions. A comparative analysis of anxiety indices in the surveyed groups showed medical workers who do not interact directly with the sick cases but work in a pandemic to be especially susceptible to psychological stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, confirming the need to correct distressing fears in this population group and provide targeted clinical-psychological assistance.