Psychological impacts of COVID-19 on Iranian Health Care Workers: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Since the coronavirus spread in Iran, almost all healthcare workers (HCWs) have been fighting this disease. Due to the high workload, high prevalence of the virus, lack of specific treatment, and the uncertainty of the end of this epidemic, they experienced difficult working conditions, which resulted in psychological consequences. This systematic review was conducted to investigate the psychological effects of COVID-19 on health care workers (HCWs). Awareness of their psychological status will help to suggest strategies to improve the situation.Methods: In this systematic review, the published articles up to August 2022 were systematically searched in PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases. The following search strategy was used for searching related papers in all databases: “COVID- 19” OR “SARS-COV-2” AND “Psychological” OR “Stress” OR “depression” AND “Healthcare workers” AND “Iran”.Results: The studies showed that psychological problems increased in Iranian HCWs during the pandemic. The most prevalent issues were anxiety (40%-97.24%), stress (27.8%- 48.97%), and depression (35.1%-38.71%). They also suffered from insomnia, PSTD, and burnout. Factors such as gender, age groups, history of physical illnesses, and history of psychiatric were associated with these problems.Conclusion: HCWs are exposed to psychological and mental issues. Thus, taking measures that protect them in both physical and psychological dimensions is very important. Implications for nursing management: the findings showed HCWs were more vulnerable to adverse psychological effects such as anxiety, stress, and depression. Policymakers and managers should implement supportive, protective, motivational, encouraging, and training interventions to prevent and reduce these consequences.

Keywords

• covid-19
• healthcare workers
• psychological impacts
• systematic review
• iran