Muhammad Irfan Malik, Mariam Khan, Babar Tasneem Shaikh, Wajid Hussain, Tahir Iqbal, Asma Ambreen, Aamir Afzal.
Psychological Assessment of Health Care Workers in Intensive Care Units During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Ann Pak Inst Med Sci Jan ;17(4):306-11.

Background Fear and depression are common to any pandemic particularly in healthcare workers as they are in the front line to treat the diseased. Such a state directly affects the performance of the health system and the patients who are seeking care. This study aimed at assessing the psychological effect of COVID-19 among the healthcare workers in the intensive care units of two tertiary care hospitals of Rawalpindi & Islamabad. Methods It was a descriptive cross-sectional study, conducted over five months i.e., 1st July 2020 to 1st November 2020. Non-probability consecutive sampling technique was used for recruiting health care workers. PHQ-9 tool was used including 9 questions (items) related to the depression due to COVID-19. Other tool Fear of COVID-19 scale was based on 5 points Likert scale as `strongly disagree`, `disagree`, `neutral`, `agree` and `strongly agree`. Besides descriptive frequencies, mean and standard deviation, Spearman correlation (r) was applied to check the correlation between fear of COVID-19 with age (years) and professional experience (years). Results Out of 382 healthcare workers (doctors, nurses & other staff) recruited in the study, around 50% were found to be suffering from severe depression and have developed a fear of the disease. A significant positive correlation was observed between the age of the healthcare worker and the degree of fear of COVID-19 (p<0.05). Similarly, a significant positive correlation was observed between the number of professional experience and the fear of COVID-19 (p<0.05). Conclusion It is concluded that healthcare workers in ICU are at risk of depression because of fear of COVID-19. The current situation highlights the areas that need attention. Special training or orientation must be arranged for a situation of an outbreak or a pandemic and skills for keeping one`s psychological wellbeing and mental health must be imparted.

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