Predicting Factors of Depression and Anxiety in Mental Health Nurses: A Quantitative Cross-Sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: The nursing profession is characterized as one of the most stressful and emotional dementing professions. It is widely agreed that many nurses are experiencing anxiety and depression as a results of their profession. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence and associated factors of depression and anxiety among mental health nurses working in public psychiatric hospitals, in order to identify independent predictors of mental health disorders risk. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted in which 110 mental health nurses who were working in public psychiatric hospitals of Greece participated. The Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 (GAD-2) questionnaire along with a sheet with basics demographic, social, and work characteristics, including gender, age, marital status, educational level, working experience in nursing, working position and shift, were used as instrument for data collection. RESULTS: The mean age of the nurses was 42.64 years (SD = 5.87 years) and working experience in nursing 15.73 years (SD = 5.64 years). Most participants were women 64.5%, married 59.1% and nursing assistant 53.6%, while 48.2% of them held a higher education degree. A very large percentage found to be classified as depressed (52.7%) and anxious (48.2%) and factors that found to be associated were age, marital status and educational level (for depression and anxiety) and working experience (only for depression). CONCLUSIONS: Mental health nurses are in high risk for developing psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety. Being single, divorced or widowed, older, with many years of experience and a higher education degree can be predicting factors associated with depression and anxiety in mental health nurses.