Perceived stress and its associated factors among health care providers during COVID-19 outbreak in Ilu Aba Bor and Bunno Bedelle Zones of Oromia regional state, South West, Ethiopia, 2020: A Cross sectional study

Background: Pandemic corona virus outbreak has global distribution and world health organization stated that there is a high risk of pandemic corona virus out spreading to other developing countries that can make health professionals serving in third world countries to fear for morbidity and mortality. Even though the problem is given a concern in Western countries, in developing countries like Ethiopia the data is limited and the concern for these front liners is low. Objectives: To assess level of perceived stress and associated factors among health care providers during corona virus outbreak in Ilu Aba Bora and Bunno Bedelle Zones, Oromia regional state, South West Ethiopia, 2020. Methods: Facility based cross sectional study design was conducted among 365 respondents. Perceived stress was assessed using perceived stress scale (PSS) instrument. The data was organized and processed by the use of epi info-7 and analyzed using SPSS version 21. Results: The prevalence of perceived stress due to pandemic corona virus among health care providers working in public health facilities was 57%. In Multivariate logistic regression being married (AOR=4.6, 95% CI: 3.51; 9.33), less than one year work experience (AOR= 2.57, 95%CI: 1.83-7.32) and having BSc degree and lower educational background (AOR=3.8, 95%CI: 2.81; 7.03) had significantly associated with perceived stress among health care providers at p value of less than 0.05. Conclusion: Lower work experience, being married and lower educational background was significantly associated with perceived stress. Ministry of health in collaboration with ministry of education and other stakeholders should facilitate stress management skills inductive trainings to practitioners of newly recruited health care providers working in health care facilities.