Immediate impact of COVID-19 on mental health and its associated factors among healthcare workers.

Immediate impact of COVID-19 on mental health and its associated factors among healthcare workers.

The emerging infectious disease, novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak began in December 2019 and spread worldwide [1]. A total of 213 countries, areas, or territories were affected in April 2020 [2]. Coronaviruses are known to cause respiratory tract infection among humans, similar to the previous outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) [3] and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) [4]. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was unknown to be an infectious agent for humans before the outbreak in December 2019. The patients may mainly be present with fever, dry cough, and respiratory problems, while 80% of the infected cases are mild or asymptomatic [5]. The increasing numbers of infectious cases overwhelmed the workload in healthcare sectors in different countries. Although the social distancing and stay at home advice are recommended in the community, the healthcare workers were continuing to work in the respective areas [6]. During the pandemic.

A total of 2166 respondents from 31 countries worldwide responded to the survey. Among them, 69 respondents’ data were incomplete and therefore, were excluded from the analysis. A total of 2097 respondents were included in the analysis. The participant’s geographic distributions were described in Table

Approximately half of them were living in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) (52.0%), and a
quarter was from the Western Pacific Region (WPRO) (25.4%) (Ref S4 in the Online Supplementary
Document). The majority of the respondents, 79.2%, were from the lower-middle-income countries according to the world bank classification

CONCLUTION:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems should address the psychological burden among
healthcare workers. Mental health support for the healthcare workers should be available and accessible.
Meanwhile, attention is needed for those who are staying alone, single, working in ICU, and those who
have a shorter duration of working experience in their professions.

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