Stress in Healthcare Workers during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-sectional online study from Northern India

BACKGROUND : The healthcare workers being a vulnerable population during the COVID-19 pandemic is facing many mental health problems. Stress is one of the major issues which can lead to anxiety, depression and sleep problems. Stress can be due factors like fear of getting infected with the virus or spreading it to the family members, uncertainty related to running out of supplies of groceries or medications, troubled sleeping or recurrent thought of the virus, etc. An understanding of the magnitude of the stress causing factors will be helpful in planning and guiding the resources in a proper direction during and in future pandemics. AIM : To estimate the magnitude of covid related stress and its relation with the sociodemographic and clinical variables. METHODOLOGY: It was a cross-sectional online study. The study proforma included the semi-structured proforma and COVID Stress Scale (CSS). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: : A total of 326 responses were received of which 311 were analysed. Higher mean scores were observed in the compulsive checking ( 6.15, SD 4.77) and danger and contamination subscale ( 5.94, SD4.74) of CSS while lower scores were observed in traumatic stress domain(1.59, SD3.36). Age, gender, marital status and category of healthcare professional were significant for xenophobia, while traumatic stress and socioeconomic consequence were significant in case who were married. A history of COVID-19 infection leads to more compulsive checking for COVID-10 infection and related information.