The psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic on medical staff in Guangdong, China: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background During previous pandemic outbreaks, medical staff have reported high levels of psychological distress. The aim of the current study was to report a snapshot of the psychological impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and its correlated factors on medical staff in Guangdong, China. Methods On the 2nd and 3rd February 2020, soon after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we surveyed medical staff at four hospitals in Guangdong, China, to collect demographic characteristics, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14), and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) scores. Results Complete responses were received from 1045 medical staff. Respondents were divided into high- and low-risk groups according to their working environment of contacting with potential or confirmed COVID-19 cases. The proportion of staff with anxiety (55.4% v. 43.0%, p < 0.001) or depression (43.6% v. 36.8%, p = 0.028) was significantly higher in the high-risk group than the low-risk group. The percentage of staff with severe anxiety was similar in the two groups. Doctors were more susceptible to moderate-to-severe depressive symptoms. The high-risk group had higher levels of clinical insomnia (13.5% v. 8.5%, p = 0.011) and were more likely to be in the upper quartile for stress symptoms (24.7% v. 19.3%, p = 0.037) than the low-risk group. Additionally, work experience negatively correlated with insomnia symptoms. Conclusions It is important for hospitals and authorities to protect both the physical and psychological health of medical staff during times of pandemic, even those with a low exposure risk.

The Psychological Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak on Nurses Working in the Northwest of Amhara Regional State Referral Hospitals, Northwest Ethiopia

“…The prevalence of anxiety in this study was higher than studies conducted in Jiangsu Province; China; 37.9%, 22 China; 46.04, 23 Jinzhong, Shanxi Province, China; 39%, 24 Wuhan china; 24.1%, 25 China; 54.4%, 26 Spain; 58.6%, 27 Jordan; 42.4%, 28 New York; 40%, 29 Singapore; 14.5%, 30 and Guangdong China; 55.4%. 31 The possible justification for this difference might be due to the difference in socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental factors such as attitudes, lack of adequate equipment like personal protective equipment and resources contribute to coping with the psychological crisis of the pandemic.…”

Impact of viral epidemic outbreaks on mental health of healthcare workers: a rapid systematic review and meta-analysis

“… Kang et al, 2020b , Wang et al, 2020a , Wang et al, 2020b , Wang et al, 2020c , World Health Organization 2020b , Zhu et al, 2020 …”

Investigating the Psychological Impact of COVID-19 among Healthcare Workers: A Meta-Analysis

“…Twenty-nine studies were of good quality [16][17][18][19][24][25][26][27][28]31,34,39,41,42,44,46,53,54,57,[59][60][61]63,64,66,68,71,79,80] (score range 7-9) and thirty-six studies were of medium quality [6,20,21,23,27,29,30,32,33,[35][36][37][38]43,45,[47][48][49][50][51][52]55,56,…”

“…Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was assessed in six studies [21,24,34,64,71,77]. Under the random effects model, the overall prevalence of PTSD in a sample size of 3676 was 11.4% (95% CI: 3.6-30.9; I 2 = 99.2% p < 0.001; Figure A3 in Appendix C).…”