Levels and predictors of anxiety, depression and health anxiety during COVID-19 pandemic in Turkish society: The importance of gender

MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE GENERAL POPULATION AND HEALTH PROFESSIONALS DURING COVID-19: A SCOPING REVIEW

ABSTRACT Objective: to map the literature on mental illness in the general population and in health professionals during the Covid-19 pandemic. Method: scoping review in the MEDLINE/PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Science Direct databases and in the medRxiv, bioRxiv and PsyArXiv preprint servers, using the descriptors “Covid-19”, “coronavirus infection”, “coronavirus”, “2019-nCoV”, “2019 new coronavirus disease”, “SARS-CoV-2”, “health personnel”, “general public” and “mental health”. Results: 1,168 articles were found, among which 27 were analyzed. 19 (70%) dealt with the prevalence of mental illness in the general population, six (22%) in doctors and nurses, one (4%) in other health professionals and one (4%) in the general population and nurses. 19 symptoms of mental illness were identified. Conclusion: the Covid-19 pandemic triggered anxiety, depression, stress and post-traumatic stress disorders in the general population and health professionals more often. Women, students and nurses are among the most affected.

A Study of Depressive Symptoms in Doctors Working at COVID-19 Hospitals: An Online Survey

Objective

COVID19 outbreak has put a tremendous physical and mental burden on frontline doctors. A limited amount of literature is available in this area. The present study was done to assess the depressive symptoms and depression levels in doctors working at COVID-19 Hospitals.

Method

This study was based on an online survey that was started on May 2020 and ended on 30^th June, 2020. An online questionnaire which included details such as age, gender, and 21 items to assess depressive symptoms was sent through social media to doctors from various countries. Depressive symptoms were measured by Beck’s Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). Items of a total of 220 questionnaires were responded. Out of these, only 200 responses were analyzed using SPSS software.

Results

Out of 200 subjects, 110 (55%) had depressive symptoms and 90 (45%) had no symptoms. Males had more depressive symptoms (42.5%) than females (12.5%). Those who worked at COVID-19 centers 75 (37.5%) had higher depressive symptoms. The number of males working at COVID-19 centers was much higher (36%) than females (12%). Depressive symptoms were significantly higher in males than females (35.35±10.25 vs 16.90±7.76; p<0.0001).

Conclusion

Doctors, especially males working at COVID-19 centers have higher depressive symptoms than their female colleagues.

Multicentric studies with larger sample sizes are needed to study the impact of COVID-19 on frontline doctors.

The Role of Resilience and Gender in Relation to Infectious-Disease-Specific Health Literacy and Anxiety During the COVID-19 Pandemic

BACKGROUND

Anxiety is one of the psychological problems being experienced by the general population during the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Health literacy, such as infectious-disease-specific health literacy, is associated with anxiety, but the mechanism of such association is not clear. This study explored the relationship between infectious-disease-specific health literacy and anxiety.

METHODS

We conducted an online survey in Hubei province, the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 1038 COVID-19-negative participants accomplished a battery of online survey tools determining their sociodemographic characteristics, perceived risk of acquiring COVID-19, infectious-disease-specific health literacy, resilience, and anxiety symptoms. We examined the moderated mediation models, in which the mediator was resilience and the moderator was gender.

RESULTS

Most (63%) of the study participants experienced at least mild anxiety. The indirect effect of infectious-disease-specific health literacy on anxiety through resilience was -0.282 (95% confidence interval [CI] = [-0.511, -0.083]), contributing to 32.7% of the total effect of health literacy on anxiety. Resilience fully mediated the association. The mediation effect of resilience tended to be stronger for the male participants than for the female participants as the moderation effect of gender remained until we included perceived risk of acquiring COVID-19 in the model.

CONCLUSION

Resilience was found to mediate the association between infectious-disease-specific health literacy and anxiety. Individuals with good infectious-disease-specific health literacy are more likely to acquire higher resilience, which may in turn decrease their anxiety level. Males may benefit more from the mediation effect of resilience during the current pandemic. Infectious-disease-specific health literacy programs may help reduce the anxiety of the program participants by enhancing their resilience during a pandemic.