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Anxiety and Sleep Disturbances Among Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic in India: Cross-Sectional Online Survey
- Source :
- JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, Vol 6, Iss 4, p e24206 (2020), JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- JMIR Publications, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Background The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has become a serious concern among the global medical community and has resulted in an unprecedented psychological impact on health care workers, who were already working under stressful conditions. Objective In this study, we aimed to evaluate and measure the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the anxiety levels and sleep quality among health care workers in India, as well as to determine how the unavailability of personal protective equipment affects their willingness to provide patient-related care. Methods We conducted an online cross-sectional study using piloted, structured questionnaires with self-reported responses from 368 volunteer male and female health care workers in India. Study participants were identified through social networking platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp. The survey evaluated the participants’ degree of signs and symptoms of anxiety and sleep quality based on the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scale and single-item Sleep Quality Scale, respectively. Information on the availability of personal protective equipment was collected based on responses to relevant survey questions. Results The majority of health care workers (126/368, 34.2%) were in the age group 45-60 years, and 52.2% (192/368) were doctors. Severe anxiety (ie, GAD-7 score >10) was observed among 7.3% (27/368) health care workers, whereas moderate, mild, and minimal anxiety was observed among 12.5% (46/368), 29.3% (108/368), and 50.8% (187/368) health care workers, respectively. Moreover, 31.5% (116/368) of the health care workers had poor-to-fair sleep quality (ie, scores Conclusions The COVID-19 pandemic has potentially caused significant levels of anxiety and sleep disturbances among health care workers, particularly associated with the female gender, younger age group, and inadequate availability of personal protective equipment. These factors put health care workers at constant risk of contracting the infection themselves or transmitting it to their families. Early identification of at-risk health care workers and implementation of situation-tailored mitigation measures could help alleviate the risk of long-term, serious psychological sequelae as well as reduce current anxiety levels among health care workers.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
Sleep Wake Disorders
Generalized anxiety disorder
Health Personnel
India
Health Informatics
Anxiety
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Environmental health
Surveys and Questionnaires
Pandemic
Health care
medicine
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
sleep
Personal protective equipment
Pandemics
GAD-7
Sleep disorder
Original Paper
mental health, personal protective equipment
business.industry
pandemic
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
COVID-19
sleep quality
Middle Aged
medicine.disease
Mental health
occupational epidemiology
Cross-Sectional Studies
health care worker
Scale (social sciences)
online survey
Female
medicine.symptom
Public aspects of medicine
RA1-1270
business
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 23692960
- Volume :
- 6
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....c6dc5131e1b2daebaff63c57715abe8b