PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACTS OF ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME CORONAVIRUS 2 VARIANT COVID-19 ON HEALTH CARE WORKERS IN PESHAWAR

Abstract

Objective: To assess the psychological impacts of COVID-19 on the health care workers (HCWs) in Peshawar.

Material & Methods: A total of 350 self-administered questionnaires were distributed among the health care workers of three big teaching hospitals in district Peshawar, out of which 308 were suitable for analysis.  The completed questionnaires were collected from the health care workers within due course of time and their responses were noted and the data were analyzed. 

Results: Males were 55.2% and 44.8% were females. Among all health care workers, doctors were a major group (43.17%), nurses were 34.09% and other staff members were 22.72%. Exposure to COVID-19 was 85.064 % and 14.935 % were unexposed. The main concerns of health workers were: lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) 246 (79.87%), self-infection 243 (78.89%), medical violence 157 (50.97%), family infections 134 (43.50%) and getting infection from infected colleagues were 98 (31.81 %). 

Conclusion: The study concluded that COVID-19 outbreak has significant psychological impacts on healthcare workers. In majority of the cases, the reason for the psychological impacts were the lack of PPE which could cause infection to the workers as well as their family members and endanger their lives.