ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The current study was aimed to evaluate depression, anxiety, and stress among nurses during the COVID-19 (wave III) at a public hospital in Quetta city, Pakistan. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: By using the validated Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale - 21, three hundred and twenty-five nurses practicing at the Sandeman Provincial Hospital, Quetta were approached for data collection. Through SPSS, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used during data analysis. Chi-square test was used to assess the goodness-of-fit between observed values and demographic variables. The factors that were significantly associated with depression, anxiety, and stress were further assessed by binary logistic regression analysis. The statistical significance was set at 0.05. RESULTS: Out of the 325 nurses, 297 participated in the study with a response rate of 91.3%. Mild depression and stress were reported in the current cohort of nurses (6.00 ± 5.30 and 8.01 ± 4.47), respectively. The mean anxiety score was 6.68 ± 4.86 indicating moderate anxiety among the study respondents. Marital status, working department, and job experience were significantly associated with depression, anxiety, and stress with moderate effect size (>0.3). The logistic regression reported department in which nurses were stationed (adjusted OR = 2.54, 95% CI = 1.118-1.415, p < 0.001) and job experience (adjusted OR = 1.004, 95% CI = 1.001-1.215, p = 0.002) as significant predictors of depression, anxiety and stress. Nurses working in the corona ward were more likely to develop depression, anxiety and stress by a factor of 2.54 and married nurses with a factor of 1.004 provided controlling other confounding factors. CONCLUSION: Moderate depression, anxiety, and stress were observed among nurses and it calls for hospital management to consider interventions for all nurses irrespective of their present working departments. Facilitating continuous and comprehensive support mechanisms aimed at protecting nurses' mental health is of great importance during pandemics. The findings of the study have some clear suggestions for mental health advocacy among nurses that are essential for improving the quality of services and patients' safety.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The world population is under the grip of global pandemic of COVID-19. The present study analyzed relationship between meteorological parameters and COVID-19 in three major cities of Pakistan, that is, Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar. METHODS: The impacts of heat index (HI) and ultraviolet index (UVI) over daily COVID-19 cases have examined to identify its transmission and propagation. The significance of basic reproductive number (R0), growth rate (Gr) and doubling time (Td) of COVID-19 with HI and UVI was determined. RESULTS: Both indices show a significant positive correlation (at 5% significance level) to R0, Td, and Gr of COVID-19 patients. Our results showed that the minimum threshold temperature of 33â°C for HI (with a positive variation of 3â°C to 5â°C) put a significant impact on new cases. CONCLUSION: HI and UVI impacted significantly to decline COVID-19 cases over the region.