Prevalence and predictors of stress during COVID pandemic among health-care workers in India: A systematic review

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of its kinds of public health emergencies that the world is grappling with. The health-care workers (HCWs) were at the forefront of the battle against this scourge. As a result of continuous service delivery, they experienced stress and burnout which varied from the type of HCWs, gender, type of service, and the length of service rendered by them. Given the context, this systematic review assessed the prevalence and predictors of stress among different types of HCWs in India. The systematic review was conducted using PubMed search engine and 13 articles were selected for the purpose of review. Of the 13 studies identified, 11 studies were carried out predominantly in India or in some Indian states and 2 studies were multinational studies, in which samples were also drawn from India. Of these 13 studies, 6, 5, 3, 2, and 2 studies were conducted among the doctors, specialists, nurses, dentists, and allied HCWs in India, respectively. It was observed that the prevalence of stress among HCWs varied with age, gender, type of HCWs, place of work, and duration of work, and the predictors were long working hours, continuous contact with patients, fear of self-infection, stigmatization, and fear of carrying the infection to the family. Stress and burnout among HCWs are inevitable; however, there should be ways and means to have coping behavior else the same would affect the professionals' personal life and patient care. Hence, appropriate measures need to be taken to address this issue by the HCWs themselves, government, and other social sectors organizations.