Abstract

Background: Since March-April 2020, India and its overburdened health care services have faced a new challenge of COVID-19 pandemic. HCWs, along with stress of rigorous duties and long work hours have faced additional stress like fear of infection, transmission, alienation and rejection.Burden not only undermines the quality of life of HCWs but also impacts the quality of health services provided by them, increase practice errors, leading to worse outcomes and additional costs. As our hospital was one of the busiest tertiary care centers of central India with maximum patient load, during this pandemic, we initiated this study to assess how mental health of the HCWs is being affected.To measure the level of Depression, Anxiety & Stress in Health care workers (Resident doctors & Consultants) working in a tertiary care centre in central India. To compare the depression, anxiety & stress scores between various factors related to the work profile.
Material and Methods: It was a Cross sectional study carried out in a tertiary care center in central India. 145 HCWs (resident doctors and consultants) working in COVID wards and ICUs were included in the study. After taking an informed consent, socio-demographic details were obtained and DASS-21 (Depression, anxiety and stress scale) was applied.
Results: 78 (53.7%) of HCWs were males and 67 (46.2%) were females. Majority 97 (66.8%) were from medicine allied branches and 48 (33.1%) from surgery allied branches. Majority [110 (7.6%)] were 1^st and 2^nd year residents. 72 (49.6%) had more than 4 months of duty. 84 (57.9%) had 1-60 hours of ICU duty. The prevalence rates of depression, anxiety and stress were 62%, 66%, and 56% respectively.  Out of these extremely severe grades of depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms were seen in 30%, 18% and 10% respectively. Significantly higher scores were observed in residents of surgery allied branches (54 +/- 32.5), HCWs who had no previous experience (52.18 +/- 31.8), 1^st (56.6+/-34.6) and 2^nd (43.2+/-27.6) year residents, total duration of duty upto 2 months (59.12+/-36.4) and ICU duty of 100 hours (62.1+/- 33.2). However the scores decreased in HCWs who had duties of more than 2 months and ICU duty of more than 100 hours.
Conclusion: More than half of HCWs had depression, anxiety & stress. Significantly higher scores were seen in junior residents, more number of ICU work hours and total duration of duties, and the HCWs with no prior experience. Reducing the duty hours, adequate training in intensive care settings and sensitization about various methods to regulate emotions might help to reduce the stress in HCWs in such difficult times.