Abstract
The emergence and propagation of COVID-19 pandemic has subjected resident doctors to greater workload and consequent psychological implications. Many studies have illustrated various degrees of mental health issues among health care workers in general; however very limited ones have focused primarily on the resident doctors. Therefore, this study aimed to find out the prevalence of stress among the resident doctors of Nepal. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in all the teaching hospitals of Nepal with ethical clearance from the Institutional Review Committee (Reference number-245). An online self-designed structured questionnaire developed using Google forms along with questions from stress subscale of Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale - 21 was disseminated to the residents via social media platforms using Convenience sampling technique. Responses generated were analyzed with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.Point estimate at 95% Confidence Interval was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data. The prevalence of stress among resident doctors was found to be 16 (8.2%) (4.3-12.1 at 95% Confidence Interval). Greater prevalence of stress was seen among residents working outside Kathmandu valley, those in the frontline and those who were unmarried. Loss of collaborative study/ professional and academic growth experiences was responsible for causing extremely severe stress among 60 (30.9%) residents, followed by stress due to uncertainty regarding COVID-19 58 (29.9%) and unavailability/lack of quality control of personal protective equipment 58 (29.9%). This study has shed light upon the prevalence of stress and its precipitating factors in Nepalese resident doctors due to COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings could help address these issues for their mitigation promptly.
Highlights
The emergence and propagation of COVID-19 pandemic has subjected resident doctors to greater workload and consequent psychological implications
This study presents our assessment regarding the subjective burden of stress of Nepalese resident doctors during COVID-19 pandemic
The travel limitations during nation-wide lockdown limited effective collaboration with respective teaching hospitals and limiting the number of participants. This is one of the few studies of its kind in Nepal where the prevalence of stress and stress factors experienced by resident doctors have been pointed out
Summary
The emergence and propagation of COVID-19 pandemic has subjected resident doctors to greater workload and consequent psychological implications. Many studies have illustrated various degrees of mental health issues among health care workers in general; very limited ones have focused primarily on the resident doctors. This study aimed to find out the prevalence of stress among the resident doctors of Nepal. The COVID-19 pandemic, since its emergence in December, 2019,1 has inundated hospitals around the world with sick patients, putting relentless work pressure and mental health tolls on the Health Care Workers (HCW).[2,3,4,5,6,7]. Adhikari et al Stress among Resident Doctors Working in DifferentHospitals of Nepal in the Face of COVID-19 Pandemic. Resident doctors pursuing their postgraduate studies in different teaching hospitals in Nepal are more prone to developing health conditions like anxiety, depression and burnout syndromes[9,10] as they are working in clinical settings for longer durations and taking responsibility for multiple units of a hospital.
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