Mental Health Status among Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19 in Iran

Objective: The recent escalated numbers of subjected COVID-19 patients and mortality rates have alerted the general population and authorities to its effects not only on physical health but also on different aspects of the society such as mental health. This study assesses the general mental health and immediate psychological impacts in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Method: In this cross-sectional study, 88 patients from two tertiary hospitals in Tehran agreed to complete the surveys. The Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) and 12 item General Health questionnaire (GHQ-12) were used to evaluate mental health and impact of disease. Epidemiological and sociodemographic information entailing underlying diseases was assess by a researcher-made questionnaire. Results: We found that the psychological impact of the current pandemic is mild to moderate. During the initial phase of the pandemic, the intellectual engagements, inducing post event stress is not yet entirely developed. However, patients had a moderate to high probability of psychiatric morbidity with 63.6% and 28.4%, respectively. Conclusion: The effect of such viral pandemic on mental health is inevitable. As we conducted the study in the dire times of the outbreak, patients showed a high probability of psychiatric morbidity. On the other hand, since the study was done in the initial phase of the epidemic, we detected mild effects of the epidemic on PTSD in COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, several psychosocial protective programs should be implicated to address the mental complications.