Mental Health and Its Association with Perceived Social Support During Covid-19 Pandemic Among Pakistani Doctors: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Background: The Novel corona virus outbreak was initially reported in Wuhan state of China in December 2019, affecting more than 200 countries. Pakistan reported its first case in late February, Health care workers (HCW’s) have been under immense physical as well as mental pressure owing to the current situation rendering feelings such as anxiety, fear, aggression and sleep disturbances, which could lead to depression, stress and even suicidal thoughts.

Methods: Analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 85 HCW’s of PAF hospital to assess the frequency of depression, anxiety, stress and their association with perceived social support among doctors, selected via simple random sampling.

A modified Questionnaire consisting of socio-demographic variables and questions from pre-validated questionnaires including DASS 21 and MSPSS was filled online by the participants of this study. Data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 23.0.

Results: The study included HCWs with mean age of 28.3 years & 82.4% of them were female. Majority were medical graduates and belonged to Islamabad. Overall, 29.4%, 31.8% and 38.8% of HCWs had depression, anxiety and stress respectively. Doctors with high social support were less depressed, stressed and showed less anxiety than those who had low social support(p<0.05).

Conclusion: The study concluded that among the mental health issues under consideration, stress was highest among HCWs and high social support positively affects their mental health.