Abstract
By the end of November 2020, the total death of COVID-19 in Kuwait hospitals reached 880 persons in a country of 4.137 million population comparing to 1.46 million death word wide. This pandemic has rapidly and profoundly affected every part of daily life, from the way people work, live, shop, socialize, and plan for future. In this battle, nurses were the big fighter against this enemy and went through tremendous psychological & physical pressure, working long shifts and often not provided with adequate emotional support (Veenema& Meyer,2020) under these conditions, the WHO recognizes the importance of nurse’s mental health and well- being. Therefore, nurses need supportive psychological interventions to promote emotional release and improve their mental health, hoping to overcome this stage safely with sturdy psychological health. Purpose : In this study, I am trying to highlight the level of the psychological impact of this event on our staff nurses in Kuwait hospitals& the efficiency of their coping mechanism during this pandemic with special consideration to the reaction of graduate nurses from Kuwait nursing institute. Method : In this quantitative method survey, an online questionnaire using Google Form was distributed through the head of the department in designated hospitals for COVID-19 between November 7 and 16 -2020 snowball sampling technique was also encouraged, a total of 187 nurses were responded in this sample, uncompleted questionnaires were excluded.The questionnaire included four main sections, social- demographic information, occupational & work history, general health questionnaire (GHQ-12), and a simplified copping style scale.A consent form was available pre- to filling the survey, Participant could withdraw at any point they wish even after an agreement to start. Results : A total of 181 participants attended the study, 79.6% Female while 20.4% were Male 30identified as having psychological distress.151 were without destress, univariate analysis revealed that there is significant difference in nationality, job role, working years, effectiveness of available precautionary measures, being treated differently because of working in hospital & being in contact with covid-19 cases between the two groups. Number of Kuwaiti staff without destress is less than their number with destress.For the two types of copping style, the mean avoidant coping of those with distress (2.49) was higher than that without distress (2.07) this difference was statistically significant where p=0.00Approach coping for the destress group is higher than approach coping of the non-distress group, Approach coping for our institute graduate was higher than the avoidant coping. Conclusions : Our staff nurses in Kuwait hospitals have a low psychological effect due to COVID-19 outbreak with variable coping style, our nursing institute graduate experience allow psychological effect & a positive coping mechanism. coping style is divided to approach & avoidant style, approach style is much stronger. Keywords: COVID-19- Pandemic – nurses- nursing institute graduate- Psychological distress- Coping style DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/91-02 Publication date: July 31 st 2021
Highlights
IntroductionCOVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered virus that was first reported on December 12, 2019, in Wuhan (Wang, Tang, &Wei,2020: Zhou et al.,2020a) affecting 218 countries with a total of 65.868.826 infected cases & 1.517.524 death sword wide (WHO), In Kuwait, the total numbers of cases reached 143.917 cases & 886 deaths.The first case in Kuwait was discovered on the 24 Feb coming from Iran (Republic of Kuwait Ministry of health,2020) all the batch being isolated to guaranty the non-spread of the virus, most infected cases were recovered spontaneously without special treatment, whereas the minority labeled as severe cases usually chronic diseases & elderly (WHO, 2020)Coronavirus counted as one of the fast-spreading diseases heading toward middle and elderly age population causing death for elderly & chronic disease cases.In the middle of this dramatic battle the brave solder -our frontline nurses fighting to ensure an acceptable level of care, sacrificing their time& safety for their patients
By tracing the group under stress n=30 we found that some were coping positively 3.14+-0.58, some were negative in coping(avoidance) 2.49+_0.56, same for population without any stress n=146,2.07+_0.65 coped negatively,[144] were positive in coping2.99+_0.75. (Table 4) For the group of nursing institute graduate it was clear that coping approach group p=.913 exceed the number of avoidant coping p=.135 (Table 4a) www.iiste.org
In this research it was disclosed that minority of our staff nurses including nursing institute graduate Experienced certain level of psychological distress, reflected by the score of their answers, only 30staff out of total 181 staff cleared to be negatively affected & being under stress, majority were female n=27 only[3] were male, 26married,only 4 were single, they found to be in area such as COVID-19 Wards, ICU-CCU-Medical,Surgical Ward, Outpatient& PHC, 13 0ut of 30 were staff nurses with degree of BSN n=12,Diploman=12,n=6 Associated degree, half were Kuwaiti n=15- same number for non-Kuwaiti
Summary
COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered virus that was first reported on December 12, 2019, in Wuhan (Wang, Tang, &Wei,2020: Zhou et al.,2020a) affecting 218 countries with a total of 65.868.826 infected cases & 1.517.524 death sword wide (WHO), In Kuwait, the total numbers of cases reached 143.917 cases & 886 deaths.The first case in Kuwait was discovered on the 24 Feb coming from Iran (Republic of Kuwait Ministry of health,2020) all the batch being isolated to guaranty the non-spread of the virus, most infected cases were recovered spontaneously without special treatment, whereas the minority labeled as severe cases usually chronic diseases & elderly (WHO, 2020)Coronavirus counted as one of the fast-spreading diseases heading toward middle and elderly age population causing death for elderly & chronic disease cases.In the middle of this dramatic battle the brave solder -our frontline nurses fighting to ensure an acceptable level of care, sacrificing their time& safety for their patients. COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered virus that was first reported on December 12, 2019, in Wuhan (Wang, Tang, &Wei,2020: Zhou et al.,2020a) affecting 218 countries with a total of 65.868.826 infected cases & 1.517.524 death sword wide (WHO), In Kuwait, the total numbers of cases reached 143.917 cases & 886 deaths. The first case in Kuwait was discovered on the 24 Feb coming from Iran (Republic of Kuwait Ministry of health,2020) all the batch being isolated to guaranty the non-spread of the virus, most infected cases were recovered spontaneously without special treatment, whereas the minority labeled as severe cases usually chronic diseases & elderly (WHO, 2020). Despite the increased number of infected cases among the health professionals in Kuwait and around the ward Staff nurses are still sincerely working, day to day their social isolation builds up and more psychological distress could be noticed (Kang et al, 2020). Psychological distress is a state of emotional suffering associated with stressors and demands that are difficult to cope with in daily life, the lack of effective care for and difficulty in identifying psychological distress is frustrating for health professionals, it may indicate the beginning of major depressive disorder
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