Impact of psychological stress during COVID 19 pandemic on quality of life of health care workers in mental health hospital in Egypt (preprint)

ABSTRACT

Background: COVID-19 outbreak resulted in negative mental health consequences such as depression, anxiety, and stress, particularly among health-care workers. Objective: To evaluate health care worker mental well-being and explore the reasons standing beyond their concerns and fears. Methods: From January to June 2021, we recruited 107 health care workers from psychiatric hospitals. The translated Arabic version COVID stress scale was used to assess their level of stress. The WHO Quality of Life - BREF score was used to assess their level of affection for their quality of life. Results: The majority of our sample (45.8%) was between the ages of 20 and 30. Females made up 37.8% of the group. The majority of them were infected during the first wave. The COVID Stress Scale (CSS) revealed that 21.5% of participants had no signs or symptoms of depression, while 55.1% had mild symptoms. Only 23.4% of our sample had moderate to severe symptoms. When categorised by domains, the mean CSS score was 12.21 ± 5.62 for danger subscale, 6.18 ± 4.07 for socioeconomic subscale, 8.44 ± 4.58 for xenophobia subscale, 7.99 ± 4.18 for contamination subscale, 5.87 ± 4.32 for traumatic subscale, and 11.13 ± 6.15 for compulsive subscale. The mean scores for the WHO QOL-brief score for physical aspect were 91.51 ± 21.5, 75.25 ± 12.84 for psychological aspect, 40.42 ± 8.52 for social aspect, and 96.26 ± 17.76 for environmental aspect. Conclusion: we discovered that health-care workers experienced high levels of stress, particularly during and after COVID -19 pandemic waves.