Psychology Research and Behavior Management (Apr 2022)

Anxiety Among Healthcare Workers During COVID-19 Pandemic in Lebanon: The Importance of the Work Environment and Personal Resilience

  • Sakr CJ,
  • Rahme D,
  • Fakih L,
  • Assaf SA,
  • Redlich CA,
  • Slade MD,
  • Fakhreddine M,
  • Usta J,
  • Musharrafieh U,
  • Maalouf G,
  • Khater B

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 15
pp. 811 – 821

Abstract

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Carine J Sakr,1,* Diana Rahme,1,* Lina Fakih,1 Sara A Assaf,1 Carrie A Redlich,2 Martin D Slade,2 Mohammad Fakhreddine,3 Jinan Usta,4 Umayya Musharrafieh,4 Grace Maalouf,4 Beatrice Khater4 1Employee Health Unit, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon; 2Yale Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program,Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA; 3Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon; 4Department of Family Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Beatrice Khater, Department of Family Medicine, AUBMC, Cairo Street, Hamra, Beirut, Lebanon, Email [email protected]: Healthcare workers (HCWs) have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to their risk of direct exposure to the virus, they were subjected to long working hours, scarcity of PPE, and additional stressors that impacted their psychological wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to assess anxiety and its predictors among a sample of HCWs at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) and to evaluate the association between resilience and anxiety.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted using an online survey between March and June 2021 among HCWs at AUBMC. The psychosocial scale section included the 7-item generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-7) scale and a 25-item resilience scale, validated tools used to assess anxiety and resilience respectively. Data were analyzed on SPSS version 27, and descriptive statistics were applied. Predictors were evaluated using bivariate and multivariate linear regression.Results: From a total of 92 participants, 75% were involved in direct patient care, and of those, 95% worked directly with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients. The majority (83%) had minimal to mild anxiety, whereas the rest had moderate to high anxiety levels. Around 41% reported moderately high to high resilience, 47% were found to be between the low end and moderate resilience scale and only 12% had very low or low resilience. More than 80% of the participants received PPE training, reported always working with adequate preventive infection control measures, and were vaccinated. Further, more than 70% of participants reported trusting the management and agreed that the safety of the workers is considered a high priority. No significant association between sociodemographic and COVID-19 work exposure factors with anxiety was found. Multivariate analysis results showed that a lower anxiety score was associated with higher resilience (p = 0.011).Conclusion: This study has shown a strong association between low anxiety levels and high resilience scores in this group of mostly vaccinated HCWs caring for COVID-19 patients. The high percentage of vaccination along with PPE availability could explain the low anxiety levels reported among the participants.Keywords: COVID-19, healthcare workers, anxiety, resilience, Lebanon

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