Psychological burden of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated factors among frontline doctors of Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Frontline doctors are the most vulnerable and high-risk population to get the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Hence, we aimed to evaluate the anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance and fear of COVID-19 among frontline doctors of Bangladesh during the pandemic, and the associated factors for these psychological symptoms. Methods: In total, 370 frontline doctors who were involved in the treatment of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients during the pandemic took part in an online cross-sectional study. Recruitment was completed using convenience sampling and the data were collected after the start of community transmission of COVID-19 in the country. Anxiety and depression, sleep disturbance, and fear of COVID-19 were assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire-4, two-item version of the Sleep Condition Indicator, and the Fear of Coronavirus-19 scale, respectively. Socio-demographic information, health service-related information, co-morbidity, and smoking history were collected for evaluating risk factors. The proportion of psychological symptoms were presented using descriptive statistics and the associated factors were identified using multinomial logistic regression analysis. Results: Of the doctors, 36.5% had anxiety, 38.4% had depression, 18.6% had insomnia, and 31.9% had fear of COVID-19. In multinomial logistic regression, inadequate resources in the workplace were found as the single most significant predictor for all psychological outcomes: anxiety and/or depression (severe, OR 3.0, p=0.01; moderate, OR 5.3, p=0.000; mild, OR 2.3, p=0.003), sleep disturbance (moderate, OR 1.9, p=0.02), and fear of COVID-19 (severe, OR 1.9, p=0.03; moderate, OR 1.8, p=0.03). Conclusions: The study demonstrated a high burden of psychological symptoms among frontline doctors of Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Inadequate resources are contributing to the poor mental health of Bangladeshi doctors. The supply of sufficient resources in workplaces and mental health counseling may help to mitigate the burden of the psychological symptoms identified among the respondents..

Prevalence and risk factors of mental disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh: a systematic review

“…Prevalence of mental disorders: Healthcare professionals Due to close contact with the COVID-19 infected and/or suspected patients, the healthcare professionals generally experience higher psychological distresses. Only four studies were conducted focusing on the mental health of the healthcare professionals, whereas the prevalence of depression and anxiety ranged from 34.2-48.5% and 32.5-69.5%, respectively (22,24,25,40). Nevertheless, stress was not reported in any of the studies.…”

“…Gender was found to be a signi cant predictor of mental disorders in a large number of studies (8, 14,[19][20][21][22][24][25][26]29,30,32,35,36,[38][39][40]. A study found that females were suffering mostly from depression, anxiety, and stress, respectively, where it was 3.4-, 3.4-and 4.5 times higher than males (19).…”

“…The shortage of protective tools was a risk factor for psychological distresses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Few studies reported that the lack of personal protection equipment, inadequate or insu cient training, and other incentives related to protection in uenced the risk of mental health problems among healthcare professionals (22,24,25). Besides, Sakib et al (36) found that only 15.9% of the healthcare professionals were satis ed with the quality of the PPE provided by the authorities, and the prevalence of depression was higher among HCPs who were dissatis ed with PPE (30.2% vs. 18.0%).…”

“…g. Healthcare facility and patient-related information Physicians reporting inadequate resource to deal with the COVID-19 infected patients were at increased risk of depression and/or anxiety; that is, 2.28-, 5.30-, and 2.99-times higher risk were predicted for the mild, moderate and severe levels of depression and/or anxiety, respectively (22). Thus, healthcare professionals were being reported restlessness while examining the patients with u-like symptoms, whereas a double depression rate was identi ed to these physicians compared to those who were not restless (36).…”

Sleep quality and COVID-19 outcomes: the evidence-based lessons in the framework of predictive, preventive and personalised (3P) medicine

“…Table 2 presents the collected data with corresponding interpretation towards analysed sleep quality in healthcare givers. The analysed data indicate that working with COVID-19-affected patients is associated not only with a poorer sleep quality and insomnia symptoms, but also with mental health risks such as increased stress and burnout as well as a strong predisposition to mental disorders such as depression and anxiety [56,57,[59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77].…”