One in Five Health Care Workers Reports Mental Health Conditions

THURSDAY, March 11, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Globally, among health care workers, there has been a high prevalence of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a review published online March 10 in PLOS ONE.

Yufei Li, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review to identify studies on the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and PTSD in health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic (December 2019 to August 2020).

The researchers identified 65 studies involving 97,333 health care workers across 21 countries. In a pooled analysis, the prevalence of mild depression was 21.7 percent, anxiety was 22.1 percent, and PTSD was 21.5 percent. For depression and anxiety, pooled prevalence estimates were highest in studies conducted in the Middle East (34.6 and 28.9 percent, respectively).

“Health care workers are at risk of common mental disorders, and the results of this review should inform action in policy and practice, to support the psychological well-being of health care workers,” the authors write.

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