Occurrence of depression, anxiety, stress, and fear of COVID-19 among staff nurses of South India during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background: Besides the general population, the psychologically connected problems associated with COVID-19 had also affected the frontline health-care workers, such as nurses and doctors, who faced prominent challenges 'with respect to their mental health. According to recent studies concerning COVID-19, the nurses happened to be those health-care workers who faced the more psychological problems resulting from COVID-19 outbreak. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study evaluating the fear of COVID-19 using the fear of COVID-19 scale and depression, anxiety, and stress levels using Depression Anxiety and Stress Score. The participants' demographic data such as gender, age, working category, hospital unit, and work shift were collected in addition to the above-mentioned questionnaires. Results: There were 277 staff nurses, out of which 259 were females and 18 were males participated in this study. The common age of the study group was between 21 and 40 years and most of them (47%) worked at government primary health-care centers. Discussion: The nurses who were younger at age tend to be more stressed than the older nurses which could be due to the fact that younger nurses might have felt nervous due to their inexperience and poor preparation for their occupational role at work. Conclusion: Increasing the awareness and educating nurses toward the essential need for addressing their mental health issues with timely and adequate support measures is recommended.