Mental health outcomes among health care workers exposed to COVID-19 in a tertiary government hospital in Pangasinan
- Author:
Jaylo Abalos
1
;
Ainstein Marie Villanueva-Misa
1
,
2
;
Donny M. Caramat
1
;
Teresita H. Sison
3
Author Information
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- Keywords: Distress
- MeSH: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Depression; Anxiety; Mental Health; Health Personnel
- From: Philippine Journal of Internal Medicine 2021;59(3):205-213
- CountryPhilippines
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
Introduction:The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a major health crisis that affected 32 million people to
date and caused death to 990,000 individuals. The impact of this pandemic on the healthcare system took its toll especially to the healthcare workers and its effect on their physical and mental health. We aim to assess severity of generalized anxiety, depression and subjective distress among medical, allied and ancillary healthcare workers (HCWs) who handled COVID-19 patients.
Methodology:This is a cross sectional, survey-based study done from July 1 to August 31, 2020 involving healthcare workers who handled COVID-19 patients in a tertiary hospital in Pangasinan. The self-administered questionnaires used were the Generalized Anxiety Disorder- 7 for generalized anxiety, Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) for depression and Impact of Events Scale–Revised (IES-R) for subjective distress.
Results:A total of 417 of 450 contacted individuals completed the survey, with a participation rate of 92.67%. Majority were women (64.57%) and 53.24% were aged 19 to 30 years old. Sixty percent of the respondents were nurses, 25.9% were physicians and the rest were composed of medical technologists (6.47%), radiologic technologists (5.52%) and respiratory therapists (1.68%). Subjective distress was noted to be present in 253 (60.67%) healthcare workers followed by anxiety 224 (53.72%) and depression 184 (44.12%). Allied health professionals and male participants experienced anxiety the most as well as subjective distress. Depression was more severe among physicians (2 [1.85%]) and women (3 [1.1%]). Physicians and allied health professionals reported more severe degrees of mental health symptoms compared to nurses.
Conclusion:In this study, the proportion of HCWs who experienced subjective distress, generalized anxiety and depression were 60.67%, 53.72% and 44.12% respectively. Generalized anxiety and subjective distress were more severe in men and allied health professionals. Meanwhile, the more severe symptoms of depression were present in women and among physicians. - Full text:3 Mental.pdf
