Predictors of anxiety and depression in operating room nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-center cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Operating room nurses (ORNs) who directly deal with the treatment and care of COVID-19 patients during the pandemic are at risk in terms of psychological stress and other mental health problems. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to compare the anxiety and depression levels of ORNs working in different countries in the COVID-19 outbreak, and to determine the predictors and the difference between countries. METHODS: This was a descriptive and cross-sectional study. Data were collected online using a google form between February 2021-February 2022. The universe of the research is nurses who are members of national Perioperative Nurses Association (USA, Türkiye, Australia, England, India, Israel) and 1127 ORNs participated the study. In multivariate analysis, independent predictors of anxiety and depression status were examined by binary logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: The rate of anxiety is 5.46 times higher in nurses in the USA, 5.07 times higher among nurses in Australia, and 4.49 times higher for nurses in England. It was determined that the rate of depression in ORNs working in Türkiye was 5.97 times higher. It was found that the rate of depression is 1.59 times higher in ORNs living away from the family after care of COVID-19 patient. CONCLUSION: Despite some differences between countries in terms of health system, patient potential, economic and the opportunities offered, generally high levels of anxiety and/or depression indicate that all ORNs need urgent support. Identifying risk factors will help recognize anxiety and depression in ORNs and take measures to protect their mental health during the pandemic.

The Perioperative Steering Committee as an Accountable Infrastructure to Enable and Sustain Change.

Leaders in perioperative and interventional procedure areas need to be able to initiate and sustain change to improve operational processes in their departments or service lines. Although available literature discusses change in health care organizations, there is a lack of published articles on the implementation and sustainment of change. This article provides a review of supporting literature on change management and an infrastructure model that we have successfully implemented to sustain change. An organizational case study focused on creating sustained improvements for first procedure on-time starts and turnover times details the process of creating the accountability system for actualizing the performance targets in a perioperative environment. The case study examines the existing process and initial challenges with creating sustainable and quantifiable outcomes, describes the process of implementing the infrastructure discussed in the article, and evaluates the results. Perioperative leaders can use the information to improve processes in their work environments.