Abstract
.We conducted a cross-sectional survey to assess the anxiety, distress, and turnover intention (likelihood to leave their current job) of healthcare workers in Peru during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results reported that 21.7% healthcare workers in Peru experienced severe anxiety, whereas 26.1% of them experienced severe mental distress. A higher level of education related with a lower level of anxiety. Younger workers had a higher level of turnover intention than their older colleagues did. Healthcare workers in the private sector had a higher turnover intention than those in the public sector. Most importantly, people who were geographically far from Lima, the epicenter in Peru, during the outbreak experienced less anxiety and mental distress, corroborating the ripple effect and disconfirming the typhoon eye theory. However, the direction of these relationships can change depending on the type of institutions (public versus private) and the type of employees’ contract (full time versus part time). Our research helps provide insights for clinical professionals in identifying the vulnerable groups to mental disorders in Peru. This is the first study to assess anxiety, mental distress, and turnover intention in healthcare workers in Peru during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlights
Peru has enabled the most restrictive measures in its national public health history to control the current COVID-19 outbreak.[1,2,3,4] The first patient with COVID-19 in Peru was detected in Lima on March 5, 2020.5 Five days after, classes in schools were suspended nationwide, and on March 12, all classes at universities were suspended nationally.[6]
This study identifies the vulnerable regions where individuals are more likely to suffer from well-being issues and helps to guide medical professionals’ attention toward the more mentally vulnerable groups based on the distance from the epicenter in the COVID-19 outbreak in Peru: Lima
Our results show that Peru’s healthcare workers’ anxiety and mental distress decreased as the distance from the epicenter increases, corroborating the ripple effect and disconfirming the typhoon eye theory
Summary
Peru has enabled the most restrictive measures in its national public health history to control the current COVID-19 outbreak.[1,2,3,4] The first patient with COVID-19 in Peru was detected in Lima on March 5, 2020.5 Five days after, classes in schools were suspended nationwide, and on March 12, all classes at universities were suspended nationally.[6] On March 15, a state of emergency, border closure, and lockdown was declared with the order of social isolation for 15 days,[7] which has been extended multiple times, and currently, it has been announced to be until June 30, 2020 Those measures were very similar to the ones imposed in China, which have affected people’s lives, jobs, health, and well-being,[8] increasing stress and anxiety[9,10] during the COVID-19 outbreak. Personal protection equipment (PPE) access, burnout due to long work hours, not seeing their families for many days, the high risk of becoming infected, and the psychological harm of uncertainty have been reported to affect the physical and psychological status of healthcare workers in China[11] and Iran.[11,12] at the best of our knowledge, this has not been properly studied in Peru, as it has already been reported in China,[13,14,15] Singapore,[16] Iran,[12,17] Italy,[18,19] France,[20] United Kingdom,[21] and Spain.[22,23] The COVID-19 crisis is causing an increase in burnout or anxiety,[24,25] which resulted in an unprecedented psychological impact,[26,27,28] and affecting people’s life satisfaction that is one of the most critical indicators of mental health.[29,30] We aim to use early evidence in Peru to help mental
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