Anxiety, Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and their Association with Presenteeism among a COVID-19 Hospital in Mexico City

Abstract

Background and aim: Hospital workers providing care to COVID-19 patients have reported depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These pathologies could be related to job presenteeism, decreasing productivity. Our aim was to analyze the association between depression, anxiety and PTSD, and job presenteeism among hospital workers. Methods: We applied a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Global Evaluation of Post-traumatic Stress (EGEP-5) Scale and the Stanford Presenteeism Scale (SPS-6) to n=272 workers of a COVID-dedicated hospital of the Mexican Social Security Institute in Mexico City. We used logistic regression models to analyze the odds of presenteeism associated with depression, anxiety and PTSD separately, adjusted for sex, age, marital status, education, direct contact with COVID patients and previous COVID-related incident (eg. being sick themselves or a relative). Results: Participants had a mean age of 32 years and 78% were female. 5.5% had depression, 18% anxiety and 19.1% PTSD. Presenteeism in the last month was 45.2%. The odds of presenteeism among those with depression were OR=5.69 (95%CI: 1.44, 22.47), among those with anxiety OR=18.93 (95%CI: 6.80, 52.71) and among those with PTSD OR=4.64, (95%CI: 2.19, 9.80). The odds of presenteeism among those caring directly for COVID patients were: depression OR=3.48 (95%CI: 2.03, 5.96), anxiety OR=4.49 (95%CI: 2.44, 8.24), PTSD OR=3.62 (95%CI: 2.08, 6.29). In the model for depression the odds for those having a previous COVID-related incident was OR=2.04 (95%CI: 1.20, 3.46). Women had larger odds of presenteeism than men in the depression OR=2.03 (95%CI: 1.05, 3.93) and the PTSD OR=2.03 (95%CI: 1.05, 3.93) models. Conclusions: Depression, anxiety and PTSD were strongly associated with job presenteeism among hospital workers, pointing at the relevance of providing mental care for workers, especially those directly in contact with COVID patients. Keywords: Presenteeism, Mental Health, COVID-19 health care workers