Original Research Article
Year: 2021 | Month: April | Volume: 11 | Issue: 4 | Pages: 83-92
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijhsr.20210411
Anxiety and Depression among COVID Positive Frontline Health Care Workers in Nepal
Sushila Baral1, Pawan Pandeya1, Kalyan Sapkota2, Srijana Paudel3, Jewan Pariyar2, Yadu Nath Baral3, Arzoo Neupane4, Rajesh Kumar Yadav5
1Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal
2Bharatpur Hospital, Chitwan, Nepal, Chitwan, Nepal
3National Academy of Medical Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal
4Sahid Gangalal Memorial Heart Center, Kathmandu, Nepal
5BNMT Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal
Corresponding Author: Sushila Baral
ABSTRACT
Background: COVID-19, an emerging contagious disease had affected all over the world and become a global health threat. Lockdown and restriction had made the life of the health care workers troublesome and psychosocial problems are exaggerated. Moreover, health care workers are the frontline workers to deal with the COVID-19 patients; they are at high risk. Due to social stigma and hectic schedule of work had made their life more stressful. The study aimed to assess anxiety and depression and its associated factors among COVID-19 positive frontline health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 323 COVID-19 positive health care workers working in different provinces of Nepal. The Google form was made by adopting GAD-7 for anxiety and PHQ-9 for depression and made available to study population through various social media.
Results: The prevalence of anxiety and depression among the COVID-19 positive frontline health care worker was 39% and 35.5% respectively. The study showed significant association between staying with friend during pandemic (p 0.015), daily meditation (p 0.020), duty in isolation ward (p 0.027), unaware of incentives provision (p 0.034), stigma (p <0.001) with anxiety and education status (p 0.023), fear of dying from COVID-19 (p 0.045) and stigma (p 0.05) with depression in multiple logistic regression analysis.
Conclusions: In the pandemic, COVID-19 positive frontline health workers had developed anxiety and depression symptoms. Training and sufficient preventive practice need to be implemented to control consequences of COVID 19 pandemic.
Key words: Anxiety; Coronavirus; Depression; Frontline health workers, Nepal