Perceived Psychological Feelings Make Important Contributions to the Symptoms of Common Mental Disorders of Medical Staff During the COVID-19.

Bing Han,Chao Ma,Rongmeng Jiang,Jing Wen,Hongguang Chen,Ying Wang,Tingting Zhang,Yueqin Huang,Zhaorui Liu

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.738610

Abstract

ObjectiveLack of information about mental health status among medical staff during the epidemic of COVID-19 in China is one of the major barriers to psychological interventions. This paper aims to evaluate the contributions of perceived psychological feelings to the symptoms of common mental disorders among medical staff during the epidemic of COVID-19 in China.MethodA large sample of medical staff based on a non-probability sampling design was collected from February 17 to 24, 2020. The symptoms of common mental disorders were screened based on self-reported instruments to evaluate psychological distress, anxious symptoms, and depressive symptoms during the past week. Perceived psychological feelings were based on self-report. Logistic regressions and elastic net regularizations were used to evaluate the independent effect of the psychological feelings controlled by hospitals and participants characteristics.ResultsTotally 4,677 medical staff completed the survey. The prevalence of psychological distress, anxious symptoms, and depressive symptoms were 15.9% (95% CI 14.8–16.9), 16.0% (95% CI 15.0–17.1), and 34.6% (95% CI 33.2–35.9). Feelings of having adequate personal protective equipment, receiving enough emotional supports from both family members and colleagues were significantly associated with fewer symptoms of common mental disorders, while the feelings of overloaded work and insufficient rest times contributed to more psychological problems.ConclusionsPsychological feelings make important contributions to the symptoms of common mental disorders of medical staff during the epidemic of COVID-19. Strategies of psychological aids or interventions could be developed based on these feelings.

Highlights

The epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mainly in Wuhan, China attracted global attentions at the beginning of 2020
The feelings of overloaded work, previous mental health conditions, not having enough time to rest, and lack of support from family members or colleagues were the variables with highest weights in predicting the symptoms of common mental disorders
This paper aims to test the contributions of perceived psychological feelings to the symptoms of common mental disorders among doctors and nurses in hospitals during the epidemic of COVID-19 in China, and to identify the population with highest needs of psychological interventions

Summary

Introduction

The epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mainly in Wuhan, China attracted global attentions at the beginning of 2020. The main routes of the transmission of COVID-19 are respiratory droplets and close contact, which leads to the fact that doctors and nurses became high-risk exposure population, especially during the beginning stage of the epidemic when these health professionals did not realize the risk of infection. Based on a report from the China-WHO COVID19 joint expert team, 2,055 health professionals from 476 hospitals were diagnosed with COVID-19 during the first month after the lockdown [2]. With the rapid increase of the number of patients, doctors and nurses had to face enormous workload and high-risk infection, which may lead to psychological problems such as anxiety or depression

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