Psychological effect of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare professionals of Yemen and coping strategies

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has triggered psychological stress such as anxiety and depression among people around the globe. Due to the nature of the job, healthcare professionals are at high risk of infection and are facing social stigma as well. In such a scenarios, it has aggravated their mental health and they are applying various measures to cope with such adverse scenario. Therefore, this research is conducted with the objective to evaluate the psychological influence of the COVID-19 pandemic among healthcare professionals of Yemen and the coping strategies adopted thereof.Methods: A web-based, as well as face-to-face cross-sectional study, was carried out from July 2020 to December 2020 among healthcare professionals currently working in different provinces of Yemen using a standard questionnaire. The generalized anxiety disorder scale (GAD-7), patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9), and Brief-COPE scales were applied for evaluation of anxiety, depression, and the coping strategies among them.Results: A total of 197 healthcare professionals (N=197) participated in the study where the majority were male 68.5% (n=135) in gender and physicians 42.13% (n=83) by profession. The prevalence of both anxiety (6.84±5.67 for male and 7.37±4.44 for female) and depression (8.06±6.51 for male and 9.56±6.46 for female) were found of mild category among the respondents. A significant statistical difference was observed between physician versus nurse regarding anxiety and depression based on the working area (p=0.017). Trained professionals demonstrated less anxiety (6.29±5.33) and depression (7.90±6.78) as compared to untrained ones. Source of stress varied in a different province where high fear of self-health and family members was found more in female (3.90±1.00) and such fear was found more in province Sanaa, Lahij, and Abyan (4.75±0.96), (4.57±1.27) (4.50±2.12) respectively. Religion was indicated as a highly adopted coping strategy meanwhile emotional support was found the least used.Conclusions: COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the psychological stress among healthcare professionals of Yemen. Our findings illustrate the requirement of efficient policies through administrative, clinical, and welfare perspectives from the regulatory body in preparedness and preventive measures towards such pandemic that aids healthcare professionals to provide service in a stress-free condition and thus better healthcare delivery are assured.

Impacts of COVID-19 on healthcare workers’ mental and physical health in Arab Countries

“…The physical challenges faced by FHCWs during COVID-19 are numerous, including a high prevalence of the virus, increased workloads, and prolonged periods of working hours were also found by (47); (52); (60). COVID-19 had a greater impact on females and nurses compared to the other groups as one out of every ten FHCWs is reportedly infected by the virus.…”

“…Loss of additional income sources increased consumption, and depression were all associated with a low quality of life among FHCWs (29). In this review, sleeplessness, loneliness & isolation (26)(27)(29), fatigue (38)(55) (64), social stigmatization and burnout were identified as other impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on FHCWs (46)(57) (60). The identified factors that contribute to sleep deprivation among FHCWs were workload, the number of daily working hours, direct exposure to active COVID-19 patients, and lack of social support (38) (20).…”