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

Background: During any of the infectious disease outbreak, health care workers were at increased risk of being infected, and psychological distress was a common phenomenon. Therefore, the study aimed to assess the psychological distress related to COVID-19 among healthcare workers in Mettu town. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted from May 1–15, 2020 using convenient sampling techniques among 127 health care providers during COVID-19 pandemic in the Mettu town. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect information. Depression and anxiety were evaluated as subscales from the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21). Psychological distress related to COVID-19 was measured using the Impact of Event Scale Revised (IES-R). Data analysis were done using SPSS version 24. Chi-square test was used to find the association between the outcome and demographic variables. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the significance of the association at P-value < 0.05. Result: Using IES-R scale, 40.2% of the participants reported to have the symptoms of psychological distress. The majority of the participants reported mild psychological distress (37%) followed by moderate psychological distress (29%). The multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that the odds of psychological distress were found to be higher among health care providers who reported to have depressive symptoms, and those who used alcohol, khat and tobacco in the past 3 months shows a significant association with psychological distress. Conclusion: Our findings revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic had exerted major psychological distress on health care providers. So the findings, seek attention for early psychological intervention needed to manage psychological distress in health care providers regarding identified factors.