Prevalence and influencing factors of anxiety and depression symptoms among surgical nurses during COVID-19 pandemic: A large-scale cross-sectional study

Factors Affecting COVID-19-Related Fear and Burnout in Surgical Nurses

BACKGROUND

Surgical nurses face the risk of psychological problems while trying to cope with the challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

AIM

This study aimed to determine levels of COVID-19-related fear and burnout and affecting factors in surgical nurses.

DESIGN

The study has a descriptive, cross-sectional design.

METHODS

The study sample included 321 nurses working in surgical units and operation rooms in Turkey. Data were gathered with a sociodemographic and occupational characteristics form, the Fear of COVID-19 Scale and the COVID-19 Burnout Scale through a Google form between 1 August and 15 October in 2021. Obtained data were analyzed with independent groups t-test, One-Way ANOVA and simple and multiple linear regression analyses.

RESULTS

The nurses had moderate levels of fear (20.00 ± 6.77; Min-Max: 7-35) and burnout (29.52 ± 10.03; Min-Max:10-50) due to COVID-19. The female gender and belief in health staff shortage were predictive of fear and burnout related to COVID-19. Age was not predictive of COVID-19 fear and receiving education about COVID-19, exposure to violence, having adequate supplies of goggles/face shields and having a limited number of aprons/work wear were not predictive of COVID-19-related burnout. Fear of COVID-19 was predictive of COVID-19 burnout.

CONCLUSIONS

Female nurses and nurses believing in health staff shortage had higher levels of fear and burnout due to COVID-19. As COVID-19 fear increased, so did COVID-19 burnout. Nurses working in surgical units should be provided with education about coping strategies taking account of the factors affecting COVID-19-related fear and burnout.

Rural Home Care Nursing During COVID-19

BACKGROUND

The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to be a challenging time for the nursing profession globally. Research indicates that the care of patients with COVID-19 has caused significant psychological stress for nurses. Although much of the world's attention has been on nurses working in emergency departments and intensive care units, the pandemic also posed significant challenges for nurses providing home care services in rural communities.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this work was to describe the experiences of rural Canadian home care nurses during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

The data for this analysis was derived from a study that explored the continuing education needs of rural home care nurses. Since the data collection for the primary objective occurred in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 related themes were created using interpretive description methodology. Snowball and purposive sampling were used to recruit rural home care registered nurses who were employed in the central and southern areas of a western Canadian province.

RESULTS

Six themes were constructed from the data including: Nurses Must Work, Constant State of Flux, Threatened Safety, Loss of Learning Opportunities, Fearing the Unknown, and Hindsight is Easy.

CONCLUSION

The experiences of rural home care nurses during COVID-19 reflects the chaos, uncertainty, and fear that was felt globally. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations for future pandemic planning are suggested.

The Resilience of Pediatric Nurses in Context: A Mixed Methods Study

BACKGROUND

Resilience, an individual's ability to cope with and recover from stressors, is supported by contextually specific factors. Factors in the work environment may support or hinder nurses' resilience to the specific stressors present in pediatric nursing, an understudied population.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to explore the contextual factors in the work environment of pediatric nurses with varying levels of resilience, including social support, the work environment, and opportunities for coping from an individual approach.

METHODS

This study is a secondary mixed-methods analysis using ordinal logistic regression and a meta-matrix of survey responses and semi-structured interview transcripts from 30 pediatric nurses.

RESULTS

5 themes, 3 supporting and 2 hindering resilience, emerged from the interviews. Nurses described their resilience as supported by sharing the burden, support from administration, and taking a break. Participants described resilience as hindered when they found it challenging to provide quality nursing care and when they felt unappreciated or undervalued. No theme significantly changed the odds of having higher resilience.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that nurses recognize resources and conditions within their work environment as influencing their resilience. However, workplace resources and conditions are only one contributor to pediatric nurse resilience. Encouraging breaks and informal opportunities for nurses to support each other may support resilience in pediatric nurses. In addition, nursing leaders can support pediatric nurse resilience by regularly spending time connecting with nurses. Finally, health care organizations should consider how changes in the work environment may hinder nurse resilience by adding stress or changing access to supportive factors.

Systematic review of social media addiction among health workers during the pandemic Covid-19

The risk of social media (SM) addiction exponentially increases when social media is utilized during office hours for health workers. This study aims to explore the various factors that influence SM addiction in healthcare workers and to identify the potential social media addiction associated with it. The design used in this research is a systematic review with text mining methods and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses). The databases used in this study are PubMed, ProQuest, science direct, Elsevier, and Sage journals for data collection. The used keywords were associated factors, influencing factors, social media, addiction, healthcare workers, outbreak, pandemic, and COVID-19. The inclusion criteria were quantitative research, international studies, published in 2020-2022, published in Q1-Q3 journals, and open access studies and the exclusion criteria were not systematic review studies. Publications without English language and abstracts only also will be excluded. Advanced search is selected by using topics with strings "associated factors", and "influencing factors" and strings "outbreak", "pandemic", and "COVID-19". Furthermore, data extraction is carried out using text mining by the R programming to present the characteristics of publications and identify the descriptive result, such as term quantity, term replication, and Hierarchical cluster analysis. Descriptive analysis is used to present the percentage and frequency of data characteristics. Text mining begins with data preparation, namely importing text and string operations. The dataset and tokenization are created after importing the text. The most answered terms extracted from the analysis were combined into terms that will be the focus of a further investigation. A considerable part of healthcare professionals experienced Internet addiction, according to a study on the incidence and risk factors of Internet addiction among healthcare workers. Mental health not only affects physical health but also has effects on social and professional functioning in addition to being connected to personal health. Among health professionals, higher Internet and social media use was substantially linked to both anxiety and depression, as well as overall psychological health and increased substance use.

Challenge, threat, coping potential: How primary and secondary appraisals of job demands predict nurses' affective states during the COVID-19 pandemic

AIM

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rapid raise of work-related stress among nurses, affecting their emotional well-being. This study examined how nurses appraise job demands (i.e. time pressure, emotional demands and physical demands) during the pandemic, and how primary (i.e. challenge and threat) and secondary appraisals (i.e. coping potential) of job demands predict nurses' affective states (i.e. positive affect, anger and anxiety).

DESIGN

A cross-sectional online survey.

METHODS

419 nurses completed self-report measures of job demands and related appraisals. Data analyses comprised correlation analysis, factor analysis, hierarchical linear regression analysis and dominance analysis.

RESULTS

Emotional and physical demands correlated exclusively with threat appraisal, while time pressure correlated with challenge and threat appraisal. Time pressure, emotional demands and threat appraisals of job demands predicted negative affective states, while challenge appraisals of emotional and physical demands predicted positive affect. Coping potential was identified as the most important predictor variable of nurses' affective states.

PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

The current study identified statistically significant risk and protective factors in view of nurses' affective states experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cognitive functions and anxiety among blue-collar workers in hospitals during COVID-19 pandemic

Background

The rapid spread of COVID-19 poses a major threat to public health worldwide. Hospital blue-collar workers, like other health care workers, may be under severe physical and psychological stress. This psychological distress is mainly described as symptoms of anxiety and depression, stress and cognitive function. This study aimed to investigate the effects of anxiety on cognitive function among laundry and sterilization center workers in 4 hospitals during COVID-19 pandemic.

Method

This study has a cross-sectional design and it was conducted among health service workers who were occupied in health facilities (laundry and sterilization center) in 4 hospitals. In the present study, two questionnaires and a test were used to collect the data included a general health questionnaire (GHQ-28), a health anxiety index questionnaire (HAI-18) and a cognitive function test. Descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation coefficient by SPSS version 19 were used.

Results

The results showed that the overall score of coronavirus anxiety in male and female workers was 38.72 ± 5.94 and 40.92 ± 4.11, respectively. The correlation between auditory attention and coronavirus anxiety is moderate and has a negative trend (P = 0.050, n = 50, and r = -0.315). Workers with higher anxiety expressed lower auditory attention. Also, correlation between visual attention and coronavirus anxiety was weak and negative (P = 0.032, n = 50, and r = -0.179).

Conclusion

This study revealed that cognitive and psychological aspects of mental health can be affected by COVID-19 exposure and its due anxiety in blue-collar workers in hospitals. These findings indicate that purposeful supportive interventions should be implemented to promote workers' health and cognitive function.

Challenges and Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health: A Systematic Review

The measures put in place to contain the rapid spread of COVID-19 infection, such as quarantine, self-isolation, and lockdown, were supportive but have significantly affected the mental wellbeing of individuals. The primary goal of this study was to review the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. An intensive literature search was conducted using PsycINFO, PsyciatryOnline, PubMed, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases. Articles published between January 2020 and June 2022 were retrieved and appraised. Reviews and retrospective studies were excluded. One hundred and twenty-two (122) relevant articles that fulfilled the inclusion criteria were finally selected. A high prevalence of anxiety, depression, insomnia, and post-traumatic stress disorders was reported. Alcohol and substance abuse, domestic violence, stigmatization, and suicidal tendencies have all been identified as direct consequences of lockdown. The eminent risk factors for mental health disorders identified during COVID-19 include fear of infection, history of mental illness, poor financial status, female gender, and alcohol drinking. The protective factors for mental health include higher income levels, public awareness, psychological counseling, social and government support. Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a number of mental disorders in addition to economic hardship. This strongly suggests the need to monitor the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health.

Prevalence and influencing factors of anxiety and depression symptoms among surgical nurses during COVID-19 pandemic: A large-scale cross-sectional study

Aim

To evaluate the prevalence and influencing factors of anxiety and depression symptoms in surgical nurses during the COVID‐19 epidemic in Anhui, China.

Methods

A cross‐sectional, multic'entre quantitative study was conducted among surgical nurses in Anhui province. SAS, SDS and SSRS scales were used for the investigation. Data were collected between 3 March 2020 to 19 March 2020.

Results

A total of 3,492 surgical nurses completed the survey. The average level of anxiety and depression of surgical nurses were higher than that of the Chinese norm. Levels of social support for surgical nurses were significantly negatively associated with the degree of anxiety and depression. Fertility status, participation in care for COVID‐19 patients, likelihood of being infected with COVID‐19 and social support were significantly influencing surgical nurses’ anxiety degree. Similarly, these characteristics were significantly associated with the odds of depression symptoms in surgical nurses.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that targeted psychological interventions to promote mental health of surgical nurses need to be immediately implemented.