Depressed, anxious, and stressed: What have healthcare workers on the frontlines in Egypt and Saudi Arabia experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Highlights • HCWs in Egypt and Saudi-Arabia experienced depression, anxiety, and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. • Female sex, age ≤30 years, attending night shifts, and watching/reading COVID-19 news associated with worse psychological disturbances. • Providing psychological support to HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic is an urgent need.
Introduction As the Novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) was declared by the world health organization a pandemic in March 2020, thousands of healthcare workers (HCWs) worldwide were on the frontlines fighting against the pandemic. Herein, we selected two Middle East countries; Egypt and Saudi Arabia to investigate the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on their HCWs. Methods In this cross-sectional study, a Google survey was used to access HCWs in many hospitals in Egypt and Saudi Arabia between the 14th and 24th of April 2020. The survey assessed HCWs regarding their sociodemographic and occupational features, sleeping hours, and psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). Results This study included 426 HCWs (48.4% physicians, 24.2% nurses, and 27.4% other HCWs). Of them, 69% had depression, 58.9% had anxiety, 55.9% had stress, and 37.3% had inadequate sleeping (