Psychiatric problems, such as stress and anxiety disorders, are encountered among healthcare professionals fighting epidemics. Considering that COVID-19 suddenly became a pandemic and healthcare professionals have not had access to sufficient information, it is a fact that healthcare professionals have been affected on a large scale. Heavy workloads, insufficient equipment and anxiety over families increase this impact. We aimed to investigate the extent to which healthcare professionals have been psychologically affected by COVID-19 and related factors.
Data obtained through questionnaires completed by 348 healthcare professionals working during the COVID-19 pandemic and 350 participants who are in control group were investigated. The Impact of Event Scale-revised (IES-R) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the Severity Index (ISI) for insomnia were used. Differences regarding gender, occupation, age group, marital status and sub-groups were statistically analyzed.
Of the 348 healthcare professionals, 176 (50.6%) were women and 172 (49.4%) men while 190 (54.6%) were doctors and 158 (45.4%) nurses. The incidence of PTSD was statistically significantly higher in the healthcare professionals group than in the control group (p<0.001). The incidence of PTSD was statistically significantly higher among nurses (p = 0.001), women (p = 0.002) and those who were married (p = 0.007). Both PTSD and insomnia were found to be statistically significantly higher among those working in the "area of final diagnosis" (p = 0.016 and p = 0.002, respectively).
The determination of the groups most affected among professionals working in epidemics is important for the planning of in-service training and psychological support studies. If the fight against pandemics include health teams with strong psychological grounding, it leads to qualified medical care for patients.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Author