Fear of COVID-19 Among Indonesian Nurses: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

This study aims to explore Indonesian nurses’ fear of COVID-19 and the factors affecting that fear. This descriptive study selected 99 nurses from Dumai General Hospital through purposive sampling. The instrument used was the fear of COVID-19 questionnaire (FCV-19S). Chi-squared test was the primary data analysis method. The results showed that the majority of respondents are female (72.7%), Muslim (93.9%), married (64.6%), have a nursing degree diploma (69.7%), and work in the inward care unit (60.6%). The majority are nurse volunteers (75.8%) who have worked an average of 5.8 years with an average age of 31.7 years. The study results show that the majority of respondents are scared of COVID-19 (70.7%). The results also indicate that most of the nurses who are afraid of COVID-19 are women (50.5%), who have worked for less than five years (42.4%), and who provide care services in the inward unit (40.4%). However, the results indicate no relationship between gender, working unit, marital status, religion, and education with fear of COVID-19. The fear of COVID-19 among nurses is still high. However, demographic factors do not correlate with fear of COVID-19. Therefore, other factors related to the fear of COVID-19 need to be explored, and appropriate interventions should be implemented to prevent the development of mental health problems among nurses.
 Keywords: mental health, nurses, COVID-19, Indonesia