Psychological Impact of COVID-19 Patient Care on Families of Healthcare Workers
,
Abstract
Objective: The Coronavirus‑19 (COVID‑19) pandemic has perpetrated a significant mental health burden amongst health care workers (HCWs) and their families. Families of HCWs are at significant risk of various mental health problems due to concerns regarding the wellbeing of the HCW, fear of contacting the virus from HCWs, staying isolated during periods of quarantine and being the passive recipient of public stigma directed towards HCWs.
The objective of this study was to assess the perceived stress, resilience and coping tendencies of families of HCWs managing the COVID 19 crisis.
Method: A cross sectional study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in India, where close relatives of 150 HCWs managing COVID-19 patients (directly or indirectly involved in patient care) were selected using systematic random sampling. They were evaluated using the Perceived Stress Scale, Brief Resilience Coping Scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Pearson’s correlation and Independent t-test were used for statistical analysis using the SPSS software.
Results: Majority (75%) of the family members associated with frontline HCWs had moderate to high level of perceived stress, while23% and 17% had clinically significant anxiety and depressive symptoms, respectively. More than 50% had low resilience and coping scores. High levels of stress, anxiety and depression were seen in female respondents, those less than 40 years old, having a child or an elderly family member and when the HCW had direct involvement in COVID-19 patient care.
Conclusion: Families of HCWs suffer from significant psychological burden due to the COVID-19 crisis. They face significant risk of depression and anxiety associated problems, which are augmented by low resilience and impaired coping. Mental health of HCWs and their family members should be given due attention with a focus on early identification, providing psychological support and improving resilience.
2. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare |Home.accessed on May 30, 2021 Available from: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/
3. Romero CS, Delgado C, Catalá J, Ferrer C, Errando C, Iftimi A, et al. COVID-19 psychological impact in 3109 healthcare workers in Spain: The PSIMCOV group. Psychol Med. 2020:1-7.
4. Xiang YT, Yang Y, Li W, Zhang L, Zhang Q, Cheung T, et al. Timely mental health care for the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak is urgently needed. Lancet Psychiatry. 2020;7(3):228-9.
5. CluverL,LachmanJM,SherrL,etal.ParentinginatimeofCOVID19.Lancet2020;0.doi:10.1016/S0140-6736 (20)30736-4.
6. Lai J, Ma S, Wang Y, Cai Z, Hu J, Wei N, et al. Factors Associated With Mental Health Outcomes Among Health Care Workers Exposed to Coronavirus Disease 2019. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(3):e203976.
7. Selvaraj P, Muthukanagaraj P, Saluja B, Jeyaraman M, Anudeep TC, Gulati A, et al. Psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic on health-care professionals in India–A multicentric cross-sectional study. Indian J Med Sci. 2020;72(3):141.
8. Cohen S, Kamarck T, Mermelstein R. A global measure of perceived stress. J Health Soc Behav. 1983;24(4):385-96.
9. Smith KJ, Rosenberg DL, Timothy Haight G. An assessment of the psychometric properties of the perceived stress scale-10 (PSS10) with business and accounting students. Account Perspect2014;13:29-59.
10. Zigmond AS, Snaith RP. The hospital anxiety and depression scale. ActaPsychiatrica Scandinavica.1983;67(6):361-370.
11. Limonero JT, Tomás-Sábado J, Gómez-Romero MJ, Maté-Méndez J, Sinclair VG, Wallston KA, et al. Evidence for validity of the brief resilient coping scale in a young Spanish sample. Span J Psychol. 2014;17:E34.
12. Feng Z, Xu L, Cheng P, Zhang L, Li LJ, Li WH. The psychological impact of COVID-19 on the families of first-line rescuers. Indian J Psychiatry. 2020;62(Suppl 3):S438-s44.
13. Lin J, Ren YH, Gan HJ, Chen Y, Huang YF, You XM. Factors associated with resilience among non-local medical workers sent to Wuhan, China during the COVID-19 outbreak. BMC Psychiatry. 2020;20(1):417.
14. Li S, Wang Y, Xue J, Zhao N, Zhu T. The Impact of COVID-19 Epidemic Declaration on Psychological Consequences: A Study on Active Weibo Users. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(6):2032.
15. Souadka A, Essangri H, Benkabbou A, Amrani L, Majbar MA. COVID-19 and Healthcare worker's families: behind the scenes of frontline response. EClinicalMedicine. 2020;23:100373.
16. Lorenzo D, Carrisi C. COVID-19 exposure risk for family members of healthcare workers: An observational study. Int J Infect Dis. 2020;98:287-9.
17. Mostafa A, Sabry W, Mostafa NS. COVID-19-related stigmatization among a sample of Egyptian healthcare workers. PLoS One. 2020;15(12):e0244172.
18. Zhu J, Sun L, Zhang L, Wang H, Fan A, Yang B, et al. Prevalence and Influencing Factors of Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in the First-Line Medical Staff Fighting Against COVID-19 in Gansu. Front Psychiatry. 2020;11:386.
19. Matud MP. Gender differences in stress and coping styles. Pers Individ Dif. 2004;37(7):1401-15.
20. Matud MP, Bethencourt JM, Ibáñez I. Gender differences in psychological distress in Spain. Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2015;61(6):560-8.
21. Matud MP, García MC. Psychological Distress and Social Functioning in Elderly Spanish People: A Gender Analysis. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16(3).
22. Bozdağ F, Ergün N. Psychological Resilience of Healthcare Professionals During COVID-19 Pandemic [published online ahead of print, 2020 Oct 13]. Psychol Rep. 2020;33294120965477.
23. Wang L, He W, Yu X, Hu D, Bao M, Liu H, et al. Coronavirus disease 2019 in elderly patients: Characteristics and prognostic factors based on 4-week follow-up. J Infect. 2020;80(6):639-45.
24. Chen S, Xia M, Wen W, et al. Mental health status and coping strategy of medical workers in China during The COVID-19 outbreak. medRxiv; 2020.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 17 No 2 (2022) | |
| Section | Original Article(s) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.18502/ijps.v17i2.8912 | |
| Keywords | ||
| Covid-19 Family Healthcare Workers India Psychological Health | ||
| Rights and permissions | |
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
