The prevalence of common mental disorders among health care professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic at a tertiary Hospital in East Africa

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has resulted in unprecedented morbidity, mortality, and health system crisis leading to a significant psychological distress on healthcare workers (HCWs). The study aimed to determine the prevalence of symptoms of common mental disorders among HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic at St. Paul Hospital, Ethiopia. Methods: A self-administered cross-sectional study was conducted to collect socio-demographic information and symptoms of mental disorders using validated measurement tools. Accordingly, PHQ-9, GAD-7, ISI, and IES-R were used to assess the presence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and distress, respectively. Chi-square test, non-parametric, and logistic regression analysis were used to detect risk factors for common mental disorders. Results: A total of 420 healthcare workers participated in the survey. The prevalence of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and psychological distress was 20.2%, 21.9%, 12.4%, and 15.5% respectively. Frontline HCWs had higher scores of mental health symptoms than other health care workers. Logistic regression analysis showed that being married was associated with a high level of depression. Working in a frontline position was an independent factor associated with a high-level depression, anxiety, and psychological distress. Limitations: It is a single-centre cross-sectional study and the findings may not be generalizable or reveal causality.

Levels and predictors of anxiety, depression, and stress during COVID-19 pandemic among frontline healthcare providers in Gurage zonal public hospitals, Southwest Ethiopia, 2020: A multicenter cross-sectional study

“…According to our study, Health care providers living with their spouse and family were more likely to develop depression than those HCPs living alone. This finding is supported by research findings in St Paul, Ethiopia [ 64 ], Saudi Arabia [ 55 ], India [ 75 , 84 ], and the United Kingdom [ 87 ]. which states that HCWs who were either married or married with children were more depressed than those among unmarried HCWs/ living alone [ 84 ].…”

“…Mali (73.3%) [ 53 ], Saudi Arabia (51.4%) [ 54 ], (78.8%) [ 55 ], Iran (67.55%) [ 56 ], Iraq (48.9%) [ 57 ], Nepal (41.9%) [ 58 ], Turkey (45.1%) [ 59 ], China (41.1%) [ 60 ], (44.6%) [ 4 ], North Italy (50.1%) [ 61 ], and USA (43%) [ 62 ]. However, it is higher than the study conducted in St Peter hospital, Addis Ababa (21.2%) [ 63 ], St Paul Hospital (21.9%) [ 64 ], multinational multi-center study (8.7%) [ 65 ], Middle East country (23.6%) [ 66 ], Iran (25.8%) [ 67 ], China 8.5% [ 68 ] (14.3%) [ 69 ], India (17.7%) [ 47 ], Italy (19.8%) [ 70 ], Malaysia (29.7%) [ 71 ], and Australia (21%). This discrepancy may be due to differences in workload, socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental factors, variation in the availability of personal protective equipment and resources, the difference in emotional response related to previous experience/exposure with SARS, MERS, and H1N1 epidemics, and also it may be related to the different cut-off scores used to define levels of clinically significant anxiety.…”

Psychological Distress Among Health Care Workers in Health Facilities of Mettu Town During COVID-19 Outbreak, South West Ethiopia, 2020

“…the finding from Hubei province, Wuhan in China among healthcare workers exposed to 2019 Coronavirus disease found that the prevalence of psychological distress was 71.2% (13). In other ways, the magnitude of the psychological distress among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia ranges from 42% (14) in Dessie city to 78.3% (15) in Jimma town.…”

The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa. A narrative review of existing literature.

“…The total number of respondents in these studies was 5,323. The qualitative study had the least 50 respondents [37], while the most signi cant number of participants, 422, was recorded in one of the studies from Ethiopia [38]. The response rates varied between 90%-100%, with most studies dominated by male respondents, 51.9%-69.2%.…”

“…Age of over 40 years was associated with moderate to severe symptoms of PTSD. Two studies concluded that respondents aged over 40 years were more likely to develop PTSD symptoms than their younger counterparts [37,41]. 3.4.2 Gender: Female gender was signi cantly associated with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms among HCWs in 07 of the studies reviewed [36][37][38][41][42][43].…”