Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic among Health Care Workers in Tunisia

Abstract

Fares Jaballah, Mohamed Moussa Boudrigua, Islem Romdhane, Mohamed Ferhi, Jasser Nasri, JiheneMannai El Faiez

Background: The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a worldwide health crisis. In Tunisia, this large-scale health crisis urgently triggered the restructuring and reorganization of health services to support Emergency Departments, intensive care units, and continuing medical care units. Concerns about the mental health, psychological adjustment, and recovery of health care workers treating and caring for are now emerging. The objective was to assess the psychological impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on health care workers' work, psychological outcomes, and return to work.

Methods: Our study is a retrospective monocentric clinical trial. It is performed between June and July 2022 using a selfadministered questionnaire to assess: (i) the impact on their work; (ii) the psychological consequences of the Covid-19 epidemic for health care workers.

Results: We collected 140 responses from 73 nurses (34.76%), 23 public health physicians (10.95%), 15 health technicians (7.14%), 13 residents (6.19%), 7 interns (3.33%), 5 workers (2.38%), and 4 medical specialists (1.90%). The HAD score for depression favoured certain symptomatology in most cases (n=72, 51.43%) and certain symptomatology in most cases (n=73, 52.14%) for anxiety.

Conclusions: The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about changes in the work organization and an overall increase in the workload for health care personnel.

Contribution: This pandemic should help us better understand (fathom) the vulnerability of caregivers as they are faced with psychological suffering to strengthen prevention strategies and training in the psychological issues of care, relationships, and management of health crises.

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