ABSTRACT
Purpose: Healthcare workers (HCWs) are more than others likely to be exposed to a viral overload regardless of the protective equipment and systems. Recent studies have reported that quarantine time is stressful for healthcare workers. We explored the impact of quarantine time as an external stressor on distress, sleep, healthy lifestyle behaviors, and familial relations among HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A surgery team (n = 12) were working on a patient with confirmed thyroid cancer. This team was quarantined for 14 days as per the criteria of the local health government after the patient tested positive for COVID-19. We included and interviewed this team through a purposive technique in this qualitative study in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2020. Using the Graneheim and Lundman method, we analyzed the data via thematic content analysis with a deductive approach. Results: The participants experienced distress with mental health burdens during these difficult times. Some of them had to stay away from their families and friends for the first time. The first and last days were stressful for them due to fear of infection. The HCWs attempted to maintain their healthy lifestyles, including getting sufficient sleep, reducing stress levels, and creating a positive relationship with their families. The HCWs used the following coping strategies to alleviate the effects of COVID-19: beliefs, habits, and familial support. Familial and social support were their main strategies for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The intensity level of familial and social relations was found to be a positive experience for HCWs during this stressful period. Conclusions: This study showed that HCWs experienced psychological stress during the quarantine time of the COVID-19 outbreak. The HCWs' quality of sleep was affected adversely along with negative effects on their lifestyles. However, the level of support from familial and social relations increased during the COVID-19 outbreak. This was the major means for them to deal with stress during this difficult time of their lives.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Healthcare workers are at high risk of developing sleep disorders during an outbreak. This study aimed to measure severity of sleep difficulty and its correlation with duration of deal with suspected/confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in physicians. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, 268 physicians from different medical settings were included during the COVID-19 outbreak. RESULTS: The mean age and experience of physicians were 35.06 (33-70 years) and 10.13 years. The median duration of dealing with suspected/confirmed cases of COVID-19 was 1.0 (0-30 days). The mean sleep score and stress of physicians were 8.43 of 24.0 and 4.20 of 10, respectively. More than two-thirds of the physicians were sleepless (68.3%) and majority had stress (93.7%). The study did not find a significant difference in sleep score of physicians with different specialties (P = 0.059). However, most physicians were sleepless; including anesthesia and intensive care (77.8%); general physicians (80.8%), and obstetrics and gynecology (80.0%). They were sleepless in morning (58.7%); evening (77.8%); night (100%); and multi-shift (70.9%). The physicians who dealt with suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 or with stress had more escalated sleep compared to those who did not deal with patients or without stress (9.39 vs. 7.17 and 8.78 vs. 2.69 P < 0.001). The sleep of physicians was escalated with increasing stress (r = 0.558; P < 0.001) and a number of days that physicians dealt with suspected/confirmed cases of COVID-19 (r = 0.210; P = 0.001), respectively. CONCLUSION: The study confirmed that working with COVID-19 patients has a negative effect on the sleep of physicians.