The psychological health status of nurses during the covid-19 outbreak: A cross-sectional survey study in Tamilnadu, India

ABSTRACT

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic, its rapid spread has impacted health care workers psychologically. Nurses experience heightened sense of anxiety as they are directly engaged in patient care. This study was designed to assess the Knowledge, attitude, fears of practicing nurses towards the Pandemic situation. Materials The online questionnaire based descriptive study was conducted among nurses in the southern parts of Tamil Nadu. The Questionnaire was constructed by authors based on previous studies. The data collected were analyzed for descriptive statistics using SPSS 25. Results: A total of 186 completed questionnaires were analyzed for statistics. Female nurses were 146 (78.5%) whereas male participants were 40 (21.5%). Those with 5-10 years’ work experience had participated in large numbers (76). About 53% of the participants are working in Government hospitals. 93(50%) nurses had completed bachelor’s degree in nursing. About 108 nurses (58.1%) are from urban areas. The Mean knowledge score of the participants were 9.34. A majority of 144 nurses (77.4%) had scored more than 80% bloom cut-off marks. About 83 nurses had shown positive attitude in this COVID pandemic situation while more than half of the nurses agreed that spread among them can be controlled by regular Hospital infection control programs. In this study, about 111 nurses (59%) scored higher in anxiety/fear related questions showing that they are under occupation-related stress and anxiety. Conclusion: the study shows that the nurses are well informed about the COVID-19, its transmission and nature of spread. The fear/anxiety stress that most of the participants shows the imminent need for reinforcing active participation in counselling sessions, and hospital infection control programs to tackle the burden of work-related anxiety.