MENTAL HEALTH DISORDERS IN PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS AND OTHER HEALTHCARE WORKERS DURING A PANDEMIC

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the manifestations of depression, stress and anxiety in physician assistants using a self-report scale and to compare with other healthcare workers. The validated self-report scale DASS 21 was used, which contains three subscales with 7 questions to measure depression, anxiety and stress, evaluated on a four-point scale. The study was performed in October 2022 among 68 physician assistants and 597 other healthcare workers from ambulatory, hospital and emergency medical care. Comparing the frequency of mental health disorders showed that the relative proportions of physician assistants with varying degrees of depression (34%), anxiety (46%) and stress (28%) were higher than for other occupational groups. For anxiety this frequency was significantly higher (p < 0.001). Comparing group mean levels of mental health disorders across occupational groups showed significantly higher levels of anxiety among physician assistants compared to physicians (p < 0.001). This indicates that physician assistants are a particularly vulnerable group in terms of anxiety symptoms. It is a positive fact that mild and moderate degrees of mental health disorders prevail. More than half (51%) of physician assistants were found to have some type of mental health disorder. The most common were the cases where depression, anxiety and stress were simultaneously present (19%). Significant correlations were found between the severity of depression, anxiety and stress (p < 0.0001). These results provide a clear signal for the need of professional assistance for mental health prevention in healthcare workers, especially in physician assistants during the pandemic.

Keywords

• mental health
• covid-19
• healthcare workers
• physician assistants