Job stress, anxiety, depression, and coping among professionals and non-professionals during COVID 2nd wave in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Objectives: Being a health-care worker is in additional psychological impact than the general population. Due to their active involvement in the battle against a bewildering virus outbreak. This creates added stress in fear of spreading the disease to their loved ones. Furthermore, more worried about the stigma feeling and working under extreme pressure. We aimed to assess the job stress, anxiety depression, and coping among health-care workers during COVID 2nd wave pandemic. Material and Methods: It is a hospital–based, cross-sectional study conducted in SMVMCH, Puducherry. 364 participants of frontline workers, who worked during the COVID 2nd wave were taken into study after informed consent. The symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress are assessed using Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 scale, Perceived Stress Scale, and the coping measures using Brief Resilient Coping Scale. Results: In our study, 94.1% of participants had depression, 95.8% of participants had anxiety, and 81% of participants had stress. Factors that are associated with stress, anxiety, and depression among the health-care workers were the presence of medical comorbidities in family members of health-care workers, vaccination against COVID virus, health-care workers infected with COVID-19, and family members of health-care workers who have demised due to COVID infection. Conclusion: Frontline employees were found to be working in stressful situations with varying degrees of psychiatric morbidities. COVID hospitals need to build a better psychological support system.