Psychological effect of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare professionals of Yemen and coping strategies

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 pandemic has triggered psychological stress such as anxiety and depression among people around the globe. Due to the nature of the job, healthcare professionals (HCPs) are at high risk of infection and are facing social stigma as well. This research was conducted with the objective to evaluate the psychological influence of the COVID-19 pandemic among HCPs in Yemen and the coping strategies adopted thereof. A web-based, as well as face-to-face cross-sectional study was carried out from July to December 2021 among HCPs of Yemen. The generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-7), patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9), and Brief-COPE scales were applied for the evaluation of anxiety, depression, and coping strategies. A total of 197 HCPs participated in the study where 28.4% and 43.1% had anxiety and depression respectively. The prevalence of both anxiety and depression in the majority were found of the minimal to none and mild categories (71.6% vs. 56.9% respectively). The respondents who had received training on COVID-19 had statistically significant lower GAD-7 scores than those who did not (6.32 vs. 8.02 respectively). A significant statistical difference was observed between physicians versus nurses regarding depression based on the working area (p < 0.05). The physician and pharmacist had a significant positive association with brief COPE scores at the 50th centile compared to other HCPs. The female respondents had statistically significant higher mean Brief COPE scores than male respondents (78.11 vs. 69.50 respectively). Our findings illustrate the requirement for efficient policies through administrative, clinical, and welfare perspectives from the regulatory body in preparedness and preventive measures towards such a pandemic that aids HCPs to provide service in a stress-free condition and assurance of a better healthcare system..

KEYWORDS:

• Depression
• pandemics
• Yemen
• COVID-19
• anxiety disorders
• healthcare professionals
• psychological

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the help of those healthcare professionals who participated as respondents in this study.

Authors’ contribution

NMAM: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection, Data curation, and Writing – Original draft preparation. SK: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, and Writing- Reviewing and editing. MS: Design, Resources, Supervision, and Writing-Reviewing and editing. MAAMA: Data collection, Visualization, and Writing- original draft preparation. MMSSK: Data collection, Visualization, and Writing- original draft preparation. PPP and MAJA: Data curation, Formal analysis, and Validation. GKY: Data curation, Formal analysis, and Writing-Reviewing and editing.

Availability of data and materials

The data sets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/19932820.2023.2184297.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.