COVID-19 pandemic’s burden on healthcare professionals’ mental health

INTRODUCTION: Healthcare professionals report about anxiety, depression, and fear during pandemic COVID-19 worldwide. Resilience becomes the high-powered important mechanism that reduces stress impact on the emotional state of healthcare professionals. OBJECTIVES: We suggested that effective resilience is associated with less COVID-19’s fear, as well as less anxiety, and depression; healthcare professionals’ mental health depends on age, gender, as well as involvement in the care of patients with COVID-19. METHODS: 211 healthcare professionals participated in the study and were evaluated with the Connor-Davidson Resilience 10-item scale (CD-RISC-10), Fear of COVID-19 Scale, PHQ-9, GAD-7. RESULTS: A negative correlation between resilience and fear of COVID-19 (p≤0,01), anxiety (p≤0,01), and depression (p≤0,001) was found. Positive correlations were found between depression, anxiety, and fear of COVID-19 (p≤0,001), between age and fear of COVID-19 (p≤0,05). No statistically significant association between age and depression, anxiety, or resilience was found. The significant difference of COVID-19 fear depending on gender – female vs male (p≤0,05) was found. No statistically significant difference in resilience and emotional state in healthcare professionals depending on the involvement in the care of patients with COVID-19 were found. CONCLUSIONS: Resilience is associated with better mental health in healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anxiety and depression are connected with the fear of COVID-19 and highly comorbid in healthcare professionals. The elder age and female gender are among the risk factors for a more deteriorated mental state. Fear of COVID-19, mental state, and resilience are not associated with healthcare professionals’ involvement in the care of patients with COVID-19.