Post-traumatic Stress Symptoms in Health Care Professionals During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction: The severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) associated pneumonia that emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and was later declared by the World Health Organization to be a pandemic has called coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Our study aims to determine the anxiety levels, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms levels and psychiatric symptoms of healthcare workers working at pandemic hospital and effects of these symptoms on psychological adjustment to healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey. Methods: This study was cross-sectional survey study and conducted between March 2020-June 2020 with 973 consenting participants working at the pandemic hospital. For the study, we used an online questionnaire, which consisted of three parts: an online-informed consent, basic sociodemographic information and a set of online questions. The data were collected by the researchers. All procedures were approved by our hospital's Ethics Committee. Traumatic Stress Symptom Scale (TSSS) was used for the study. Results: Nine hundred and seventy-three persons participated in the study. Among the three groups, nurses also had the highest fear of dying during the COVID-19 pandemic (p<0.001); the highest feelings of hopelessness about the future during the COVID-19 pandemic (p<0.001); the highest increase in level of anxiety (p<0.001), and the highest experience of recent sleep disturbances (p<0.001). Women had a statistically significantly higher mean TSSS score and mean TSSS score of participants with doctors or medical specialization was lower than participants with other levels of education (p<0.001). Conclusion: Although the rate of PTSD was significantly higher in nurses in our study, PTSD was also seen in the other two groups. Indeed, it was much higher in people working in environments at high risk for COVID-19 than in the other groups. This may be the consequence of nurses' having greater exposure to COVID19-infected patients. This situation may be related to long working hours, inadequate rest and burnout. We recommend that healthcare workers work in the shift.