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
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2022Volume: 16
E-location ID: e187443462212130
Publisher ID: e187443462212130
DOI: 10.2174/18744346-v16-e221214-2022-119
Article History:
Received Date: 24/7/2022Revision Received Date: 22/10/2022
Acceptance Date: 2/11/2022
Electronic publication date: 30/12/2022
Collection year: 2022
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.
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.
