Depression, Anxiety and Stress in Health Professionals in the COVID-19 Context

Gracielle Pereira Aires Garcia, Isabela Fernanda Larios Fracarolli, Heloisa Ehmke Cardoso dos Santos, Samuel Andrade de Oliveira, Bianca Gonzalez Martins, Lacir José Santin Junior, Maria Helena Palucci Marziale and Fernanda Ludmilla Rossi Rocha
Additional contact information
Gracielle Pereira Aires Garcia: School of Nursing of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (EERP/USP), São Paulo 14040-902, Brazil
Isabela Fernanda Larios Fracarolli: School of Nursing of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (EERP/USP), São Paulo 14040-902, Brazil
Heloisa Ehmke Cardoso dos Santos: School of Nursing of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (EERP/USP), São Paulo 14040-902, Brazil
Samuel Andrade de Oliveira: School of Nursing of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (EERP/USP), São Paulo 14040-902, Brazil
Bianca Gonzalez Martins: School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, São Paulo State University (UNESP), São Paulo 01049-010, Brazil
Lacir José Santin Junior: School of Nursing of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (EERP/USP), São Paulo 14040-902, Brazil
Maria Helena Palucci Marziale: School of Nursing of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (EERP/USP), São Paulo 14040-902, Brazil
Fernanda Ludmilla Rossi Rocha: School of Nursing of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (EERP/USP), São Paulo 14040-902, Brazil

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 7, 1-11

Abstract: To assess the prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress symptoms in health professionals in the COVID-19 pandemic context. Method: Cross-sectional study with non-probabilistic (snow-ball) sampling method. The assessment was performed using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and the prevalence of symptoms severity was calculated by point and 95% confidence interval. The analysis of the psychometric properties of DASS-21 was performed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and the following goodness of fit indices: χ 2 /df (chi-square ratio by degrees of freedom), Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), comparative fit index (CFI) and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) with a 90% confidence interval. Results: The study participants were 529 health professionals (82.4% women and 66.7% nursing professionals). CFA of the DASS-21 structural model presented adequate fit for the sample (χ 2 /df = 3.530; CFI = 0.979; TLI = 0.976; RMSEA = 0.069). Regarding prevalence, moderate to extremely severe symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress were found in 48.6%, 55.0% and 47.9% of the participants, respectively. Conclusion: The use of DASS-21 confirmed the validity and reliability of the data. The prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress symptoms in the participants indicated a high risk of mental illness in health professionals in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: occupational health; health personnel; depression; anxiety; psychological stress; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/4402/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/4402/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:7:p:4402-:d:788116

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().