Cognitive functions and anxiety among blue-collar workers in hospitals during COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: The rapid spread of COVID-19 poses a major threat to public health worldwide. Hospital blue-collar workers, like other health care workers, may be under severe physical and psychological stress. This psychological distress is mainly described as symptoms of anxiety and depression, stress and cognitive function. This study aimed to investigate the effects of anxiety on cognitive function among laundry and sterilization center workers in 4 hospitals during COVID-19 pandemic. Method: This study has a cross-sectional design and it was conducted among health service workers who were occupied in health facilities (laundry and sterilization center) in 4 hospitals. In the present study, two questionnaires and a test were used to collect the data included a general health questionnaire (GHQ-28), a health anxiety index questionnaire (HAI-18) and a cognitive function test. Descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation coefficient by SPSS version 19 were used. Results: The results showed that the overall score of coronavirus anxiety in male and female workers was 38.72 ± 5.94 and 40.92 ± 4.11, respectively. The correlation between auditory attention and coronavirus anxiety is moderate and has a negative trend (P = 0.050, n = 50, and r = -0.315). Workers with higher anxiety expressed lower auditory attention. Also, correlation between visual attention and coronavirus anxiety was weak and negative (P = 0.032, n = 50, and r = -0.179). Conclusion: This study revealed that cognitive and psychological aspects of mental health can be affected by COVID-19 exposure and its due anxiety in blue-collar workers in hospitals. These findings indicate that purposeful supportive interventions should be implemented to promote workers' health and cognitive function.

Job stress and resilience in Iranian nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case-control study.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has created a wide range of sociocultural pressures on nurses. Resilience is defined as one's ability to adapt to an unpredictable situation and it can be a factor in accepting an undesirable psychosocial situation. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to examine resilience in nurses in the face of job stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The study was carried out as a case-control study with participation of 400 nurses as the target group (nurses exposed to COVID-19 patients) and the control group (nurses not exposed to COVID-19 patients). To examine resilience and job stress, Conor and Davidson's questionnaire and OSIPOW questionnaire were used respectively. RESULTS: The mean scores of job stress and resilience were significantly different between the target and control groups (p < 0.05). So that resilience in the target group was less than that in the control group. In addition, job stress in the target group was higher than that of the control group (p < 0.05). There was a significant and negative correlation between resilience and job stress and the correlation was stronger in the target group (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Given the high job stress score in the participants and its negative correlation with resilience, there is need to provide the health personnel with efficient preventive and treatment approaches, improve and educate the principles of resilience, improve mental health services system, and introduce programs to control some of demographical factors in job stress such as physical activity, and employment status of nurses.