A Cross-sectional Study on Covid-19 Pandemic and Mental Illness in Healthcare Professionals

Introduction: Mental health illness has increased substantially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Estimating anxiety and depression in healthcare providers can clarify the dimensions of this burden. The objectives of the study were to compare the levels of anxiety and depression in the study population (COVID-positive versus COVID-negative) with Hamilton's anxiety (HAM-A) and Hamilton's depression (HAM-D) scales, respectively, and to estimate the relative risk of anxiety and depression in the COVID-positive participant to COVID-negative participant with subgroup analyses as per gender and occupation. Materials: and Methods In this cross-sectional study, we recruited 983 healthcare professionals from SCB Medical College, India, to assess their levels of anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic. We compared the HAM-A and HAM-D scores of COVID-positive and COVID-negative participants. We also calculated the relative risks of developing anxiety and depression symptoms. We used R software (version 4.1.2) for the statistical analyses and generation of plots. Results: The mean age of the study population was 35.95±11.54 years. Six hundred thirteen participants (62.36%) were positive for COVID infection. 575 (58.49%) persons had anxiety, as suggested by their HAM-A scores. The majority of them were nurses and pharmacists (245, 24.92%), followed by students (236, 24.01%) and clinicians (94, 9.56%). 620 (63.07%) persons had depression. Most of them were medical students (301, 30.62%), followed by nurses and pharmacists (211, 21.46%) and clinicians (108, 10.99%). The COVID-positive individuals were less anxious [relative risk: 0.614; 95% CI: 0.538-0.701] and more depressed [relative risk: 2.541; 95% CI: 2.079-3.106] than the COVID-negative individuals. Subgroup analysis of the HAM-A and HAM-D scores yielded similar results. Conclusion: The majority of the study population had symptoms of anxiety and depression during this pandemic. The COVID-negative individuals were more anxious than the COVID positives. Nevertheless, the symptoms of depression were more common in COVID-positive individuals.