Evaluation of anxiety, coronavirus phobia, sleep quality and psychological flexibility in emergency healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study was conducted to investigate whether there were any changes in the anxiety status, sleep patterns and psychological flexibility of Emergency Healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period, and to reveal the relationship of these changes with coronavirus infection, if any. For this purpose, health workers, especially those in primary care, who play a major role in the fight against the epidemic, who are personally involved in the treatment and diagnosis processes of the patients, who work in risky areas and who are fighting the epidemic, were preferred. As a descriptive and cross-sectional research, Istanbul Medeniyet University Göztepe Prof. Dr. Suleyman Yalçın City Hospital Emergency Service employees, Siirt State Hospital Emergency Service employees, VM Medicalpark Kocaeli Hospital Emergency Service employees and Kocaeli 112 Emergency Health Services health workers. The data are based on expert opinions and literature knowledge, Sociodemographic Information Form, Coronavirus 19 Phobia (Cp19-S) Scale, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 Scale (YAB-7), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Scale (PUKI), and Acceptance and Action Form-2 (KEF-2) were collected with questionnaire forms. The findings obtained in the study were evaluated in the SPSS 21.0 program. Parametric tests, student t test and One-way Anova, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Chi-Square test were used in the analysis of data suitable for normal distribution. The obtained results were evaluated at the 95% confidence interval and the significance level of p<0.05. 43.2% of the 287 participants were male, 56.8% female, 78% between 20-34 years old, 22% between 35-55 years old, 46.3% married, 53.7% 63.1% are childless, 19.5% have 1 child, 16.0% have 2 children, 1.4% have 3 children 35.2% 0-5 years, 41.1% worked for 6-10 years, 23.7% worked for 11 years or more, 36.9% worked 0-48 hours a week, 38.7% 49 -64 hours a week, 24.4% worked over 65 hours weekly, 32.1% EMT(High school graduated emergency medicine technicians) , 28.2% paramedic, 7.3% health officer, 20.9% nurse and 11.5% are doctors. Coronavirus phobia in the highest EMTs with an average of 62.11, Somatic and Social sub-dimension values in the highest EMTs with an average of 13.14 and 16.70, respectively, in the highest EMTs with an average of 9.46 GAD-7 The highest mean PUKI was found in Siirt State Hospital with 11.28, nurses having the highest PUKI average with 9.85, singles with the highest mean PUKI with 9.47, married people with the highest average of 6.51 hours in sleep, and weekly working hours values. According to the results of the study, the highest PSQI average of 10.27 was observed in those who worked between 0-48 hours, and the average of hours spent asleep was observed between 6.59 and 49-65 hours in employees. As a result of the research, the occupational groups with the highest coronavirus phobia were EMTs and health officers, followed by paramedics and nurses, and the lowest level of phobia was detected in doctors. Anxiety levels were highest in EMTs whose are followed by; paramedics, doctors, nurses in respective order and the lowest rate were found in health officials. Siirt State Hospital was the health institution with the lowest sleep quality among the health personnel, followed by; Kocaeli 112 and Göztepe EAH also the healthcare professionals with the best sleep quality among the institutions were the healthcare professionals of Kocaeli Özel VM Medikalpark. The lowest sleep quality was detected in nurses, respectively; EMTs, paramedics, doctors, and paramedics followed. The hours spent in sleep and sleep quality were found to be higher in married people compared to singles. The lowest sleep quality and the lowest hours spent in sleep were determined in those whose weekly working hours were between 0-48 hours; Those who work 65 hours or more per week and those who work between 49-65 hours per week followed respectively. In health workers whose psychological resilience levels were found to be low; anxiety levels and Covid-19 phobias were observed to be higher, while sleep quality levels were also found to be lower. Keywords: Covid-19, Sleep Quality, Anxiety, Psychological Resilience, Healthcare Professionals