Assessment of post‐SARS‐CoV‐2 fatigue among physicians working in COVID‐designated hospitals in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

Abstract Background Fatigue has been observed after the outbreaks of several infectious diseases around the world. To explore the fatigue level among physicians working in COVID‐19‐designated hospitals in Bangladesh, a matched case‒control study was conducted on post‐SARS‐CoV‐2 fatigue. Method In this study, 105 physicians diagnosed with COVID‐19 who were declared cured at least 6 weeks before the interview date were recruited as cases, and the same number of age‐ and designation‐matched healthy physicians were recruited as controls from the same hospital at a 1:1 ratio. Diagnosis of COVID‐19 infection was confirmed by detection of SARS CoV‐2 antigen by RT‒PCR from reference laboratories in Bangladesh or by HRCT chest. Result Approximately two‐thirds of the physicians were male (67.6% vs. 32.4%). More than 80% of them were younger than 40 years. The cases had a significantly greater number of comorbid conditions. The fatigue severity scale (FSS) score (mean) was much higher for cases (36.7 ± 5.3 vs. 19.3 ± 3.8) than for the control group, with a statistically significant difference. Similarly, approximately 67.7% of the previously COVID‐19‐positive physicians were in the highest FSS score tertile compared to the respondents in the control group, who had a mean score of <3. Conclusion Physicians who had a previous history of COVID‐19 infection had significantly higher total and mean FSS scores, signifying a more severe level of fatigue than physicians who had never been COVID‐19 positive while working in the same hospital irrespective of their age and sex.

Keywords

• fatigue
• fatigue severity scale
• post COVID