Sources of Health Anxiety for Hospital Staff Working during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the likelihood that hospital staff will report symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress has increased. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relative influences of circumstantial, demographic, and trait–state anxiety variables on health anxiety in this group. Methods: A total of 168 hospital staff members (mean age: 28.91 years; 56.5% females) participated in the study. They completed a series of questionnaires covering sociodemographic characteristics, health anxiety, state–trait anxiety, and job-related information. Participants also reported whether they had close acquaintances (friends, family members) infected with COVID-19. Results: Higher health anxiety was related to both trait and state anxiety. Working on the frontline, being in contact with close acquaintances infected with COVID-19, and higher state and trait anxiety predicted higher health anxiety. Gender, age, and educational background were not predictors. Conclusions: In a sample of hospital staff, subjective feelings of anxiety about one own’s health were related to personality traits, individual experiences of having close acquaintances infected with COVID-19, and working on the frontline.

Effects Of Progressive Muscle Relaxation On Anxiety Of Nurses At Covid-19 Units

“…However, the result shows that they experienced high levels of anxiety. Further,anxiety levels are significantly higher among females (Alwani et al, 2020), female nurses in particular (Leodoro & Santos, 2020;Shayganfard et al, 2021). Moreover, biopsychological characteristics as women are greater vulnerable within the face of stressful events (Hosseinzadeh-Shanjani et al, 2020),which contrasts with the findings of previous studies showing that gender turned into no longer statistically significant (Shayganfard et al, 2021;Wilczyńska et al, 2019), opposite findings have also been reported.…”

“…During the Covid-19 pandemic, health workers felt depressed and worried so that anxiety increased in carrying out their duties due to the availability of personal protective equipment (Zhang et al, 2020).Previous studies have reported that the psychological disorders experienced by health workers during the Covid-19 pandemic were mostly caused by fear of transmission and infection in family, friends, colleagues, and the presence of negative stigma from the community (Handayani et al, 2020). Besides, being close to people infected with COVID-19 was related to anxiety (Marashi et al, 2020;Shayganfard et al, 2021) (Shayganfard et al, 2021). This can lead increase in the risk of mentalemotional problems.…”

Changes of symptoms of eating disorders (ED) and their related psychological health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Last, COVID-19-related restrictions not only negatively impacted health anxiety and its related fear of getting affected by the COVID-19 among hospital staff [ 4 , 15 ]; such conditions had an unfavorable impact also on the behavioral level to avoid postponing or canceling routine medical checks. To illustrate, among pregnant women and young mothers, higher health anxiety was associated with delaying or canceling routine health assessments [ 16 ].…”

Psychosocial Health and Physical Activity in People With Major Depression in the Context of COVID-19

“…In this population all participants were in in-patient care and receiving therapy, thus the possibility of relapse was very low. When looking at other research being done in the area of psychosocial distress in the context of COVID-19, studies can be found on university students (Villani et al, 2021), health care workers (Shayganfard et al, 2021) and the general population (Wang et al, 2020). Further indicating that a change in people already diagnosed with major depression has not been investigated and may, for the afore-mentioned reasons, not be particularly likely.…”