Prevalence of Mental Health Disorders in Frontline Health Workers During Covid 19 Pandemic in Chitungwiza Urban District, Zimbabwe 2021

Abstract

A competent, responsive, and productive health workforce is one of the six essential building blocks of a well-performing health system capable of providing universal access to high-quality care. This study identified the most common mental health disorders, factors associated with mental health disorders among healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic and also identified interventions that could assist in alleviating such disorders in the Chitungwiza City Health department run clinics from January 2021 to December 2021. Focus was given to those workers offering frontline services to the communities affected by the Coronavirus. An analytic crosssectional descriptive study was conducted which allowed the researcher to collect quantitative data from respondents. A questionnaire was developed and face to face interviews were conducted by the researcher and collected data was entered onto an excel spreadsheet. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 23. The questionnaire was administered amongst 120 respondents, nurses, environmental health technicians and lab personnel. Of the interviewed 25% were male healthcare workers while 75% were female HCWs. The prevalence of symptoms of the mental disorders was computed from the pre-specified cut-off values for depression (≥10), anxiety (≥9), insomnia (≥15). The prevalence of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and psychological distress was found to be 20%, 21.6%, 12.5%, and 15.8% respectively. Moderate symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and distress were reported in 15(12.5%), 11(9.1%), 46(38.3%), and 23(19.1%) respondents respectively. Severe symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and distress were also reported in 85 (70.8%),92 (76.7%),52 (43.3%) and 65 (54.1%) respondents respectively. Factors that were independently associated with a higher risk of depression included being married (OR=2.5; 95% CI: 1.4–4.6; p = 0.003), working as frontline staff (OR= 2.4; 95% CI: 1.2–4.5; p = 0.009), monthly salary (OR= 8.1; 95% CI:2.5-30.4, p=0.001), alcohol use (OR= 1.2; 95% CI: 1.01-1.4, p=0.043) and having a pre-existing mental condition (OR=2.8; 95% CI:1.9-7.7). Workload reduction proved to be a popular intervention with 90 participants classifying it as ‘good’; 30 called it ‘very good’ which is statistically insignificant. While it was acknowledged that work reduction efforts were in place through shift sharing and flexible working hours, the effect of these interventions is that the existing workforce is thinly spread over an increasing number of Covid-19 cases thus introducing the risk of work overload and subsequent burnouts are quite detrimental to the HCW wellbeing. The researcher recommended informal support in terms of strengthening In-service trainings on infection prevention and control, provision of current treatment guidelines and prevention programs, integrating mental health services into primary care services .Adding on organizational support which include provision of adequate manpower allocation, improving working hours to prevent burnouts and creation of Covid -19 isolation centres’ for Chitungwiza community were also recommended by the researcher to assist alleviate mental health disorders amongst health care workers in Chitungwiza.