Prevalence of mental health effects among healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has placed extraordinary mental health burdens on healthcare professionals. For women, it is a major challenge to reconcile the diverse roles of a professional, mother, and wife. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this, increasing their vulnerability to mental health issues. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to assess COVID-19-related mental health of healthcare professionals and to investigate whether possible gender differences as well as other parameters are associated with mental health disturbances. METHODS: We conducted a nationwide cross-sectional study of healthcare professionals working in hospitals or primary care settings in Greece from April to June 2022. Participants answered a questionnaire that included socio-demographic and other parameters, the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS), the Coronavirus Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors Scale (CRBS), and the Obsession with COVID-19 scale (OCS). RESULTS: A total of 464 healthcare professionals participated in the study, 71.2% were females and two-thirds were 31-50 years old. Elevated levels of anxiety, frequent reassurance seeking activities and persistent troubling thoughts related to COVID-19 were found in 5.8%, 3.2% and 6.1%, respectively. However, females reported significant higher mean levels on CAS and CRBS compared to males (2.41 vs 1.60, p=0.015, and 3.36 vs 2.64, p=0.041, respectively). Participants living in smaller areas had increased levels on all three scales (CAS, p < 0.001; CRBS, p = 0.007; OCS, p < 0.001), indicating thus higher coronaphobia, more frequent reassurance-seeking behaviors and disturbed thinking about COVID-19, compared to healthcare workers living in urban regions. Furthermore, lower educational level is also associated with higher values on CAS, CRBS and OCS (p < 0.003; p = 0.017; p < 0.023, respectively). Nurses experience higher anxiety scores (2.96) than physicians (1.92, p=0.013) or other healthcare workers (1.87, p=0.016). No dysfunctional thinking about COVID-19 is observed in medical doctors, whereas nurses and other healthcare workers experience higher levels on OCS. CONCLUSIONS: Our study does not show any worrying increased psychological dysfunction related to COVID-19 pandemic among healthcare workers in general. However, females have increased levels than males. Thus, support and mental health protecting strategies should be applied primarily to female healthcare professionals when necessary. DISCLOSURE OF INTEREST: None Declared