COMPARISON OF COVID-19 FEAR LEVELS OF NURSES WORKING IN PANDEMIC AND OTHER UNITS
Authors/Creators
- 1. Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health, Düzce Provincial Health Directorate Atatürk Public Hospital, Duzce, Turkey
- 2. Kocaeli University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anatomy, Kocaeli, Turkey
Description
While many professions can reduce the risk and stress of diseases by switching to the remote working system with the pandemic, healthcare professionals have provided and still provide services by directly contacting Covid positive patients. So much so that there have been cases where the annual leave of health workers has been cancelled. In this context, situations that can be considered as stress factors experienced by health workers are continuous with professional reasons.
Especially in interventional applications such as covid-19 screening tests and invasive drug applications, the anxiety levels of nurses who have to have more physical contact with Covid positive patients are more affected. Nurses working in pandemic services; They may perceive the pandemic as a routine because they encounter Covid-positive patients every day, or they may experience an increase in their anxiety levels due to witnessing the negative situations of the cases. For this reason, our study was planned to compare the Covid-19 anxiety levels of nurses working in the covid19 pandemic service and nurses working in inpatient or outpatient services.
Our research study included 257 nurses working in pandemic wards and 259 nurses working in other wards. The Covid fear scale consisting of 7 questions was used to determine the fear levels of the participants about the pandemic.
According to our study data; The Covid-19 fear levels of healthcare workers vary according to the unit they work in. The total fear score of employees in the pandemic service was found to be higher than those working in other units. Based on this result, mental disorders that healthcare professionals may experience due to the Covid-19 pandemic; It can be kept to a minimum with simple and effective measures such as rotation and appropriate employee employment. In future studies, it is possible to contribute to the quality of life of healthcare professionals by expanding the number of participants and adding other parameters.