Analysis of the mental health status of hospital staff during the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: Medical work is a complex and interpersonally sensitive job; clinicians interact with patients, colleagues and society-at-large daily, and they are under pressure from a variety of sources. The doctor-patient relationship is of particular concern. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the current mental health status of hospital staff and related influencing factors during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. METHODS: The Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7 (GAD-7) were used to survey the current mental health status of hospital employees. The resulting qualitative data was described in the form of frequency and percentage (%), and the quantitative data were expressed as mean±standard deviation (X¯±S). RESULTS: A total of 1,074 employees of The Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University participated in the mental health survey, of whom 77.47% were women. The SCL-90 score was 133.89±48.87, and the three highest scoring factors were depression, somatisation and obsessions, with factor scores of 19.10±8.14, 16.78±6.21 and 16.27±6.39, respectively. The GAD-7 score was 3.74±4.17 for women and 2.14±3.55 for men. The number of women with anxiety disorders was higher compared with men. CONCLUSION: The mental health status of hospital workers with different demographic characteristics varied greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Active attention needs to be paid to the mental health status of hospital staff.