RESEARCH ARTICLE


Psychological Conditions among Nurses in Caring for the COVID-19 Patients: A Study from Referral Hospitals of Aceh, Indonesia



Cut Husna1, *, Nanda Anni Safitri2, Riski Amalia1
1 Department of Medical and Surgical Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia
2 Faculty of Nursing, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia


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Creative Commons License
© 2022 Husna et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Faculty of Nursing, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia; E-mail: cuthusna@unsyiah.ac.id


Abstract

Introduction:

Nurses as frontline health care providers during the COVID-19 pandemic were at high risk and vulnerable to virus infection. Physical and mental conditions in caring for COVID-19 patients in hospitals may be associated with the exacerbation of the nurses experiencing depression, anxiety, and stress among the nurses.

Objective:

The study aimed to identify the psychological conditions (depression, anxiety, and stress) among nurses providing clinical assistance in caring for COVID-19 patients.

Methods:

This investigation employed a comparative study with a cross-sectional study design. The respondents were 109 nurses working in the COVID-19 wards in two referral hospitals offering care for COVID-19 patients. Data were collected using the standardized DASS-21 questionnaire and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U-test.

Results:

The results showed psychological conditions among nurses caring for COVID-19 patients with depression (moderate) among 60.0% and 58.8%, anxiety (severe) at 60,0% and 58.8%, and stress levels (mild) at 56% and 52.9% for hospital A and B, respectively. The study also found no significant difference in depression (p=0.890), anxiety (p=0.846), and stress levels (p=0.806, α=0.05) between the nurses in the COVID-19 wards of the two hospitals.

Conclusion:

The demographic data of nurses, such as age, education level, working experience, hospital facilities, attended workshops/training on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE)/Hazmat, and management of COVID-19 patients might contribute to psychological conditions (depression, anxiety, and stress) among nurses in caring for the COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Nurses, Hospital, COVID-19.