Psychological impact of COVID-19 on health workers in Ghana: A multicentre, cross-sectional study

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacted an appreciable burden on health systems globally including adverse psychological impacts on health workers. This study sought to assess COVID-19-related fear, depression, anxiety and stress among hospital staff, potential factors that may help reduce its psychological effects and their personal coping strategies. The study will help to highlight the psychological impact of COVID-19 on Ghanaian health workers and indirectly serve as a needs assessment survey for input to support affected staff and the broader health system. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among health workers in three hospitals in the Ashanti Region of Ghana from 11 July 2020 to 12 August 2020. Demographic data and scores from the validated DASS-21 and Fear of COVID-19 scales and two other scales developed de novo were entered from 272 self-administered questionnaires and analyzed for means, frequencies and proportions. Fisher’s exact test analysis was done to ascertain associations between selected independent variables and depression, anxiety, stress and fear. Parametric and non-parametric tests were used to compare the mean and median scores of the outcome variables across the three study hospitals. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Over 40% of respondents had fear while 21.1%, 27.8% and 8.2% had depression, anxiety and stress, respectively. Positive attitudes from colleagues and the government’s tax-free salary relief were some factors said to reduce the psychological effects while over half of participants indicated praying more often as a coping strategy. There is a need for the health system to recognize the presence of these adverse psychological effects in health workers and take pragmatic steps to address them.