AUTHOR=Al-Qudimat Ahmad R. , Singh Kalpana , Mustafa Emad , Nashwan Abdulqadir J. , Al-Zoubi Raed M. , Yassin Aksam , Aboumarzouk Omar M. , Al-Ansari Abdulla 

TITLE=Psychosocial impact of COVID-19 pandemic: experience of healthcare workers in Qatar

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1283925

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2023.1283925

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Background</title><p>The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound and global impact on healthcare systems worldwide, presenting unprecedented challenges for healthcare workers (HCWs) on the front. We aimed to evaluate the prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms during the coronavirus pandemic among healthcare professionals in Qatar.</p></sec><sec sec-type="methods" id="sec2"><title>Methods</title><p>A cross-sectional study where an electronic questionnaire containing demographics, and psychosocial questions were made on Google Docs and Microsoft Team, and were sent through email and WhatsApp to healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, allied health and others working at Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar, from June 1, 2021, to January 1st 2023. ANOVA, <italic>t</italic>-test and multiple linear regression were used to see the association between the psychological factors and sociodemographic variables using STATA version 17 software.</p></sec><sec sec-type="results" id="sec3"><title>Results</title><p>A total of 829 participants were included in this study (response rate: 55%). The average age of the participants is 36.0 ± 7.1; 65.9% were males; 2.3% were doctors and 53% were nurses, 38.7% were allied healthcare professionals and 6% were others. Psychological, social effects, and workplace were shown to significantly related to their marital status, career, and hospital setting (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01 for each). Similar to this, dealing with COVID-19 patients and their education level with the length of time working at the designated facility were all connected with the health professional safety score (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05).</p></sec><sec sec-type="conclusions" id="sec4"><title>Conclusion</title><p>During the COVID-19 epidemic, healthcare workers in Qatar experienced a high incidence of negative psychosocial symptoms. To alleviate these outcomes, it would be useful to implement screening procedures for such symptoms and to devise preventive measures accordingly.</p></sec>