1. Introduction
In December 2019, an outbreak of pneumonia-like illness caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was identified in Wuhan, Hubei province of China and infected millions of individuals worldwide rapidly. On February 11th 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) named the disease the novel coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) and declared COVID-19 pandemic on March 11th 20201. Until December 2020, there have been a total of 74.299.042 confirmed cases including 1.669.982 deaths worldwide2. The COVID-19 outbreak has been one of the most serious and tragic health crises of the last century and caused significant social, economic, and mental consequences.
Healthcare workers (HCWs) play an essential role in the COVID-19 outbreak, providing care at the frontlines. In addition to overwhelming workload, they also suffer from psychological impacts of the outbreak with the fear of being infected and infecting their loved ones3. In the literature, anxiety and burnout syndrome have been described among HCWs. During the COVID-19 outbreak, the degree of despair and anxiety has been shown to increase in HCWs than the general population4. In a study conducted in Wuhan, many HCWs were infected with COVID-19 with a significantly greater risk of infection and contamination5. In this study, HCWs faced with mental health problems due to excessive workload, frustration, discrimination, isolation, fear, and exhaustion.
Since the declaration of the pandemic, the prevalence of psychological distress has increased among HCWs. In a multi-center study, the HCWs who were involved in the care of COVID-19 patients experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) more frequently and the risk of development of other psychiatric illness was significantly higher in this population6. In a systematic review, the impact of COVID-19 on mental health was evaluated among hospital-based HCWs and the prevalence of mental health outcomes were found to be as follows: depression 13.5 to 44.7%, anxiety 12.3 to 35.6%, acute stress reaction 5.2 to 32.9%, PTSD 7.4 to 37.4%, insomnia 33.8 to 36.1%, and occupational burnout 3.1 to 43.0%7. In addition, direct exposure to COVID-19 patients was the most prevalent risk factor for all mental health outcomes, except for occupational burnout. Not surprisingly, the worst outcomes were reported in nurses, frontline HCWs, and those with low social support and fewer years of working experience. In another review evaluating mental health problems faced by the HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic, sociodemographic characteristics such as sex, profession, age, and place and department of work were associated with an increased severity of mental health problems8. Additionally, psychological variables such as low social support and self-efficacy were related to increased stress, anxiety, depression, and insomnia symptoms. The authors concluded that there was growing evidence suggesting that COVID-19 could be an independent risk factor for stress in HCWs.
In the present study, we aimed to assess fear, anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, burnout, and insomnia of HCWs during COVID-19 outbreak and to identify their relation to sociodemographic and clinical characteristics in this population.