Abstract
Objective:
This descriptive study was conducted in a foundation university hospital complex in Istanbul and aimed to evaluate the anxiety in physicians who provide new type 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID) related and non-COVID-19-related services.
Materials and Methods:
This study included 50 physicians who provide COVID-19-related services and 52 physicians with non-COVID-19-related services. A questionnaire that contains sociodemographic and occupational characteristics of physicians and a state-trait anxiety scale were used as data collection tools. Data were collected through an online survey application. Data analysis checked the variable distribution using the Shapiro-Wilk normality test. Since no normal distribution was found, the Mann-Whitney U test was used for comparisons of two groups, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was used for comparisons of more than two groups. The Pearson correlation analysis was performed for correlation analysis.
Results:
Our study determined significantly higher mean state anxiety scores of physicians who provide COVID-19-related services than that of the other group (p<0.05). According to age groups, the mean trait anxiety scores of physicians aged 43 years and over who provide COVID-19-related services were significantly lower than that in physicians who provide non-COVID-19-related services (p<0.05). A strong positive correlation was found in the state and trait anxiety scale mean scores between both groups (p<0.05). Therefore, state and trait anxiety increase in correlation.
Conclusion:
Our study revealed higher state anxiety of physicians who provide COVID-19-related services than that of physicians who provide non-COVID-19-related services. Additionally, no difference was found in the trait anxiety, which indicates that working in the pandemic services causes anxiety
Keywords: Physician, COVID-19, pandemic, anxiety
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Copyright and license
Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
