Measures of depressive symptoms using beck depression inventory-ii among healthcare professionals during a pandemic of covid-19

ABSTRACT

The present study was carried out to assess the level of depressive symptoms among health-care professionals (HCPs) during the unprecedented time of COVID-19 using Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) in Karachi, Pakistan. This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted using BDI-II containing 21 questionnaires for the determination of depressive symptoms among HCPs including physi-cians, pharmacists, dentists, and other healthcare personnel working in a metropolitan city of Karachi, from February 2020 to May 2020. The survey forms were distributed electronically after obtaining written consent of respondents. One-way ANOVA test was used to evaluate the association between independents variables and BDI-II items. In the current research, out of 500 HCPs, only 328 completed the form. The mean age of the respondents was 36.32 ± 5.23 years. The outcomes revealed that the respondents stated mild levels of depression (mean = 10.69 ± 9.4). Cronbach’s alpha or internal consistency reliability coeffi-cients for depression score was 0.903. Corrected item-total correlations were satisfactory. It was observed that the majority of BDI-II items were found to be significantly associated with the experience and profes-sion of respondents. The HCPs showed mild to moderate depression symptoms during the COVID-19. To avoid the switching of the psychological impact from moderate to severe, strategies should be designed and implemented by the government and health care bodies to overcome psychological distress among HCPs.