COVID-19 in Wuhan: Sociodemographic Characteristics and Hospital Support Measures Associated with the Immediate Psychological Impact on Healthcare Workers (preprint)

ABSTRACT

Background: The outbreak of COVID-19 has laid unprecedented threats and challenges to health workers (HWs) in Wuhan, China. We aimed to assess the sociodemographic characteristics and hospital support measures associated with the immediate psychological impact on HWs at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan during COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: We conducted a single-center, cross-sectional survey of HWs via online questionnaires between February 8th and 10th, 2020. We evaluated stress, depression and anxiety by IES-R, PHQ-9, and GAD-7, respectively. We also designed a questionnaire to assess the perceptions of threat of COVID-19, and the effect of the hospital’s support measures. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify predictors of acute stress, depression, and anxiety. Findings: We received 5062 completed questionnaires (response rate, 77.1%). 29.8%, 13.5% and 4.1% HWs reported stress, depression and anxiety symptoms. Women (odds ratio[OR], 1.31; 95%CI, 0.47-0.97; p=0.032), years of working >10 years (OR, 2.02; 95%CI, 1.47-2.79; p<0.001), concomitant chronic diseases (OR, 1.51; 95%CI, 1.27-1.80; p<0.001), history of mental disorders (OR, 3.27; 95%CI, 1.77-6.05; p<0.001), and family members or relatives confirmed or suspected (OR, 1.23; 95%CI, 1.02-1.48; p=0.03) were risk factors for stress, whereas hospital-based and department-based care (OR, 0.76; 95%CI, 0.60-0.97; p=0.024) and full coverage of all departments for avoiding nosocomial infection(OR, 0.69; 95%CI, 0.53-0.89; p=0.004) were protective factors. Interpretation: Women and those who have more than 10 years of working, concomitant chronic diseases, history of mental disorders, and family members or relatives confirmed or suspected are susceptible to stress, depression and anxiety among HWs during the epidemic. The hospital’s support measures could be helpful.Funding Statement Supported by the grants 2017YFC1310000 from the National Key Research and Development Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and 2018KFYXMPT015 from Research and Development Office of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Declaration of Interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests.Ethics Approval Statement The study was approved by the institutional ethics board of Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (ID TJ-C20200129). The data analyses were done on unidentified datasets.