Mental Health and factors affecting it in first-line health care workers of COVID-19

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic has had many effects on various aspects of life and the physical and mental health of people. Health and medical staff are exposed to the most damage caused by covid-19 due to their job. The present study examines the mental health status of health workers and influencing factors in East Azerbaijan province, so that by conducting this study, it can take an effective step in supporting the mental health of frontline health workers against corona. Methods: The current study is a combined quantitative and qualitative study, the quantitative part of which was conducted in a cross-sectional descriptive analytical manner, in which 303 participants from health workers were included in the study based on the inclusion criteria after obtaining a consent form by online survey and filling the dass-21 questionnaire. Then they were entered the collected data into SPSS and appropriate statistical analysis was done on them. After conducting the quantitative part of study, 16 people who got the highest and lowest scores in the questionnaire were interviewed and the qualitative part was conducted in the form of content analysis. Results: The prevalence of depression was 42.4%, the prevalence of anxiety was 42.9% and the prevalence of stress was 40.3%. in terms of the severity of depression, the highest percentage was moderate and in terms of anxiety, the highest percentage was moderate and in terms of stress the highest percentage was related to mild severity. The results obtained from bivariate analysis showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between depression and a positive history of depression-anxiety and the number of children as well as statistically significant relationship between anxiety-stress and gender, positive history of depression-anxiety, medication use and the level of education.