Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Its Associated Factors Among Health Care Workers Fighting COVID-19 in Southern Ethiopia

Background: Healthcare workers (HCWs) are among the many groups of people who are in the frontline caring for people and facing heavy workloads, life-or-death decisions, risk of infection, and have been facing various psychosocial problems. So, monitoring mental health issues to understand the mediating factors and inform evidence-based interventions in a timely fashion is vital.

Purpose: This study aimed to assess generalized anxiety disorder and its associated factors among HCWs fighting COVID-19 in Southern Ethiopia.

Patients And Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 798 HCWs from 20 May to 20 June 2020. A pre-tested and structured interviewer-administered KOBO collect survey tool was used to collect data. The study participants were selected using a simple random sampling technique by allocating a proportion to each health institute. The association between the level of generalized anxiety disorder and its independent variables was examined by ordinal logistic regression. Assumptions for the proportional odds model were checked using parallel line tests. An adjusted proportional odds ratio with a 95% CI was used to calculate the strength of the statistical association between the independent and dependent variables.

Results: The prevalence of mild and moderate anxiety disorder among HCWs was 29.3% and 6.3%, respectively. Contact with confirmed or suspected cases (aPOR =1.97; 95% CI: 1.239, 3.132), no COVID-19 updates (aPOR=4.816, 95% CI=2.957, 7.842), no confidence on coping with stresses (aPOR=2.74, 95% CI=1.633, 4.606), and COVID-19-related worry (aPOR=1.85, 95% CI=1.120, 3.056) were positively associated with higher-order anxiety disorder. However, not feeling overwhelmed by the demands of everyday life (aPOR=0.52, 95% CI=0.370, 0.733) and feeling cannot make it (aPOR=0.44, 95% CI=0.308, 0.626) were negatively associated with a higher order of anxiety.

Conclusion: The study revealed that the prevalence of anxiety disorder among HCWs was high in the study area. The findings of the current study suggest immediate psychological intervention for health care workers in the study area is vital. Therefore, proactive measures should be taken by the stakeholders at different hierarchies to promote the psychological wellbeing of HCWs in order to control the impact of the pandemic on the HCWs, and containing the pandemic.