Depression among healthcare workers in North West Armed Forces hospital-Tabuk, Saudi Arabia: Prevalence and associated factors

BACKGROUND: Depression among healthcare workers results in adverse effects which might include impairment of work performance, reduced productivity and increase in the employee turnover rate. Despite of that, few published studies have been cited concerning depression among hospital healthcare workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This study aims to estimate the prevalence and identify the determinants of depression among health care workers working at North West Armed Forces hospital in Tabuk city, KSA. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study design that was adopted to include a representative sample of physicians and nurses working at North West Armed Forces hospital throughout the study period, provided that they worked at this hospital for at least 6 months. A self-administered questionnaire was applied including three parts; the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants, factors that could be associated with depression and the patient health-9 questionnaire to diagnose depression. RESULTS: The study included 255 healthcare workers. Females represent 58.8 % of the participants. Their age ranged between 22 and 50 years (30.6 ± 5.3 years). About two-thirds of them were nurses (64.3 %) and the remaining 35.7 % were physicians; mainly registrars (22.8 %). The prevalence of depression was 43.9 %. being severe among 0.8 % of them. Results of multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that HCWs who lost beloved person in the last 6 months were at 3.67 higher risk for developing depression compared to those who didn't report such history (adjusted odds ratio = 3.67; 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1.84–7.30, p < 0.001). Compared to HCWs of less than 5 years of experience, those with higher experience (5–10 and > 10 years) were at lower significant risk to develop depression (AOR = 0.16; 95 % CI = 0.07–0.037, p < 0.001 and AOR = 0.05; 95 % CI = 0.01–0.029, p = 0.001), respectively. CONCLUSION: Depression is a relatively common health problem affecting healthcare workers in North West Armed forces hospital, Tabuk. However, in majority of cares, the depression was mild.