Authors: Soufia Farrukh , Wajahat Hussain , Zahid Shehzad Siddiqui

Abstract

Background and Objective: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic starting from China has been spread internationally. This rapidly spreading and high mortality epidemic of Coronavirus caused significant anxiety and panic globally and affected more than 197 countries. This study aims to assess the anxiety level among health care professionals working on frontline against Coronavirus disease in teaching hospitals of Bahawalpur. Methods: A cross sectional analytical study was conducted in Bahawal Victoria Hospital and Civil Hospital Bahawalpur from February to April 2020 after taking ethical approval from institutional ethical review committee. A total of 343 physicians and nurses were surveyed through predesigned, pretested questionnaire after taking written informed consent from each respondent. Anxiety was assessed by using Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A). The sociodemographic variables of the respondents were cross tabulated with anxiety levels and Chi-square test was applied to assess statistical analysis. P-value less than or equal to 0.05 was taken as significant. Results: Mean age of the participants was 37 ± 10.54 years. Majority of the study participants (39.6%) were in the age range of 31 to 40 years. More than two thirds (69.7%) respondents were working on Contract/Adhoc basis. Job experience of 270 (78.7%) participants was between 1 – 5 years. Statistically significant association was observed between severity of anxiety and job status (P < 0.001), marital status (P < 0.001) and job experience (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Job status, marital status and experience of health care professionals has significant association with severity of anxiety which suggest that hiring of healthcare professionals should be on permanent basis which will ensure their job security that may help to reduce their anxiety level and improvement in performance.

Keywords: Anxiety, Healthcare workers, Coronavirus, Teaching hospital.