Health Status of Working Women in a Tertiary Care Center, North Kerala, India: During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: Women constitute about one-half of the workforces in most countries and spend a significant proportion of their time at the workplace, contributing to a lot of physical and mental stress. The health-care professional in the workforce was the most affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and associated risk factors have a substantial correlation. According to numerous studies from around the world, people who already have established risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, or other vascular risk factors, are more likely to contract COVID-19 and experience complications or even pass away from it. Objectives: The objective is to assess the health status of working women in a tertiary health-care center in Kerala during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: The study was done in a tertiary health-care center in Kozhikode district, Kerala, South India. This center comprises medical, paramedical and nursing institutes. A total of 262 women were included in the study, and data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. Results: This study demonstrated that working women’s stress was prevalent. It reveals that 94 (99.4%) women experience stress, 60.7% experience depression, 72.5% do not engage in daily physical activity and 80.8% of women were at risk of having NCDs. Conclusion: This study was an attempt to explore the health status of the women’s working health status during COVID-19 time. It found that some women are hypertensive, depressed and have stress-related disorders such as anxiety and worries. Mental health is directly linked with physical activity. The stress levels were controlled for those who were involved in physical activity on regular basis. Hence, we should work on this area to help improve these conditions.