The Comparison of Psychological Impact in Terms of Depression, Anxiety, Stress and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on Healthcare Workers at Public versus Private Hospital During COVID-19 Pandemic

Objective: To study the impact of COVID-19 in terms of psychological indicators and compare its impact on healthcare workers in public and private sector hospitals. Study design: It is a Cross- sectional comparative study Study Place and Duration: The study was conducted at Shifa foundation community health center and Shifa international hospital during COVID-19 pandemic from September 2020 to March 2021. Methodology: A stratified sampling technique was used to induct participants from private and public hospitals in Islamabad and Rawalpindi . An information sheet, a consent form, and an online questionnaire was emailed to the selected participants. This self-administered questionnaire collected information on five components i.e. Biodata, symptom prevalence in past month, medical history, Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) and the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) instrument. All data was entered and scrutinized using SPSS version 26.0 Results: The healthcare workers were affected by at least one of the psychological indicators. As compared to an 86.7% (n = 52) reported prevalence of depression in government hospital participants, depression was only found among 37.5% (n = 18; p < 0.001) private hospital participants. Similarly, government hospital participants had significantly higher prevalence of stress (n = 51, 85%), anxiety (n = 53, 85.5%) and post-traumatic disorder (n = 52, 83.9%) as compared to private hospital (stress n = 4, 8.5%, p < 0.001); anxiety (n = 26, 56.5%, p = 0.001); post-traumatic disorder (n = 7, 14.6%, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The occurrence of depression, stress, anxiety, and post-traumatic disorder was higher in public sector hospitals in comparison to private hospitals.