Stress status of healthcare drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

IntroductionThe pandemic of COVID-19 has brought a disastrous impact on every single aspect of human life and activities. The economic and health sectors are most affected by restriction on public movement, daily activities, and burden of coronavirus infection through increased infection and hospitalisation rate. Most research focused on front liners but they overlooked ambulance and healthcare drivers.ObjectivesTo determine the stress status of healthcare drivers in Malaysia and its associated factors during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted among randomly selected 163 healthcare drivers in Negeri Sembilan State Health Department, Malaysia, using self-reported validated questionnaires.ResultsA majority of healthcare drivers were male (100%), married (90.1%) with their highest education consisting of a high school certificate (90.1%). Ethnically, they consisted of Malay (95.7%), Indian (3.7%) and Chinese (0.6%). Three out of ten healthcare drivers were ambulance drivers, while the rest were non ambulance drivers. The prevalence of stress among healthcare drivers was 7.4% (95% CI 3.7, 11.7). Higher prevalence was found among ambulance drivers compared to non ambulance drivers;10.6% and 6.0% respectively. There was a significant association between stress and smoking status, performing on-call and duration of working hours in a similar unit.ConclusionThe study revealed that there was a low prevalence of stress among healthcare drivers in Malaysia during the pandemic. The reduced life threatening tasks, fewer emergency incidents and lesser assigned tasks throughout the movement control order during the COVID-19 pandemic could have contributed to the low prevalence statistics among the healthcare drivers in Malaysia. In addition, the effort by the Occupational and Environmental Health Unit, Negeri Sembilan State Health Department in providing consistent safety and health training including stress management might have assisted healthcare drivers to cope with the stressed situation both mentally and physically.