Anxiety, depression, and stress risk among medical staff during COVID-19 pandemic: a single-center experience

Abstract

Background The widespread pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus has caused major psychological effects, especially among health care workers who are exposed to high viral load. The aim was to investigate the psychological effects of COVID-19 on health care workers and factors affecting them. The study was carried out with an online questionnaire distributed through Google Forms for medical staff at Faculty of Medicine, Fayoum University, Egypt. The questionnaire included sociodemographic questions; validated psychometric tools for the assessment of depression, anxiety, and stress (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21); and the Impact of Event Stress Scale-Revised (IES-R). Results The total number of the participants was 115 respondents. IES-R showed that 28.7% had high posttraumatic stress disorder. By Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale, 13% had severe, 26.1% had extremely severe depression, 10.4% had severe, and 13.9% had extremely severe anxiety, and stress level was severe in 16.5% and very severe in 13.9%. The factor ‘work-years less than 5 years’ was significantly associated with the presence of stress. Personal psychiatric history of anxiety was significantly associated with abnormal IES and depression. Conclusions During the COVID-19 outbreak, medical health workers had psychosocial problems and risk factors for developing them. They were in need of attention and recovery programs.