The Global Prevalence of Anxiety, Depression, and Insomnia among Healthcare Workers during the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Vida Rezaei-Hachesu1, Shadi Naderyan Fe’li2, Khadije Maajani2, Rajabali Hokmabadi1,3, Farideh Golbabaei4*
1. PhD Candidate in Occupational Health Engineering, Dept, of Occupational Health, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
2. PhD Candidate in Epidemiology, Dept. of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
3. Instructor of Occupational Health Engineering, Dept. of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences, Bojnurd, Iran.
4. Professor of Occupational Health Engineering, Dept, of Occupational Health, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
* Corresponding author: Farideh Golbabaei; E-mail: fgolbabaei@tums.ac.ir
Abstract
Background: Covid-19 disease has posed a serious challenge to countries' healthcare systems at the present outbreak. Meanwhile, the healthcare providers' mental health has been affected. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the pooled prevalence of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among healthcare workers in a short period during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Materials and Methods: A systematic search was conducted through Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, and Embase databases, as well as preprint servers of medRxiv and SSRN, up to August 24, 2020.
Results: This review comprised 69 articles with a total sample size of 108,931 individuals selected from medical staff. The pooled prevalence of anxiety, depression, and insomnia were 37% (95% CI: 31 to 43%), 34% (95% CI: 29 to 38%), and 39% (95% CI: 25 to 53%), respectively. A subgroup analysis showed that the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and insomnia was higher in females and nurses than in others.
Conclusions: Findings indicated a high impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and insomnia among medical professionals involved in the crisis with a variety of territories and occupations of both genders.
Keywords: COVID-19, Anxiety, Depression, Insomnia, Health Personnel
Introduction
On December 27, 2019, the World Health Organization office in China reported cases of pneumonia from the live animal market in Wuhan city, the capital of Hubei province [1]. On January 7, 2020, the etiologic agent of this pneumonia was identified as the "new coronavirus" (2019-ncoV), not previously seen in humans. The disease caused by 2019-ncoV was later named Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-2019), which was renamed SARS-CoV-2 considering its close resemblance to SARS-COV [2].
At the moment, many countries worldwide are facing the COVID-19 pandemic. Although limiting the crisis through a lockdown and widespread vaccination is important to reduce the virus's physical impacts, the pandemic's mental health consequences seem to be another substantial issue [3,4].
Health care workers (HCWs), who are directly involved in diagnosing, treating, and curing patients with COVID-19, are at risk for physical and mental problems. The HCWs are exposed to a heavy psychological burden due to the increasing number of suspected cases, overworking for long periods, lacking enough personal protective equipment, worrying about transmitting the disease to the family and friends, and lacking the required medications and sufficient support for all patients [5-8]. Since HCWs play a key role in controlling the epidemic and reducing the complications of the disease, maintaining their health is not only important from an individual point of view but also ensures the general public health. Previous studies have shown an increased prevalence of mental disorders among HCWs after initiating the Coronavirus pandemic. In a country-wide survey among HCWs conducted from March 2 to April 2, 2020, in China, the prevalence of depression and anxiety were 15.5% and 12.7%, respectively [9]. Moreover, the prevalence of depression and anxiety among HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic was 28.1% and 33.1%, respectively, in a cross-sectional study in the UK [10].
At the beginning of this pandemic, all healthcare workers were under tremendous pressure. Excessive workload combined with fear of infection may cause mental disorders. The prevalence of mental disorders as an indicator of the imposed burden can show the importance of mental health in HCWs. On the other hand, the prevalence can vary over time with changes in factors such as better understanding of the disease and improvement in medical care facilities.
Differentiating short- and long-term impacts of the pandemic, in terms of time-horizon, on HCWs' mental health is necessary for policymaker guidance towards more evidence-based planning to overcome associated challenges. Thus, this systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to show the globally pooled prevalence of anxiety, depression, and insomnia among HCWs from a short-term perspective during the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, individual studies conducted during the first 8 months after the onset of the pandemic were considered.
Materials and Methods
To conduct this systematic review and meta-analysis, PRISMA (Preferred Items for Reporting Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) checklist was followed [11].
All relevant English articles on the prevalence of insomnia, anxiety, and depression among healthcare providers in dealing with COVID-19 were included in this review. Abstracts without full texts, editorials, case reports, and reviews were excluded from the study. Also, articles that did not use a valid questionnaire to measure anxiety, depression, and insomnia were excluded. Studies conducted on children, the general population, and hospitalized patients were excluded as well. Moreover, since the prevalence of an outcome in a case-control study cannot provide a good estimate in the reference population, such studies were also excluded.
To collect the data, two independent researchers searched databases of Web of Science, Scopus, Medline (PubMed), and Embase up to August 24, 2020. Moreover, preprint servers of medRxiv and SSRN were investigated. A search strategy was prepared using the combination of the following keywords: ("medical staff*" OR "Health Personnel" OR healthcare OR "Healthcare Worker*" OR "Health Care Provider*" OR "healthcare professional*") AND (COVID-19 OR "2019 novel coronavirus disease" OR "COVID-19 pandemic" OR "SARS-CoV-2 infection" OR "2019-nCoV infection" OR "coronavirus disease 2019" OR "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" OR 2019-nCoV OR "Wuhan coronavirus" OR SARS-CoV-2) AND (Depression OR "Depressive Symptom*" OR anxiety OR Nervousness OR insomnia OR "Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders" OR "Early Awakening" OR "Sleep Initiation Dysfunction*" OR "mental health" OR psychological)
All identified studies were exported to the EndNote software (version X8, for Windows, Thomson Reuters, and Philadelphia, PA, USA). After removing the duplicates, two independent researchers evaluated titles and abstracts according to the study eligibility criteria. In the case of inconsistency between reviewers, a third reviewer assessed the eligibility criteria for the study to be included in the review.
Two independent researchers developed data extraction sheets to obtain relevant data, including the first author's name, publication date, occupation, study location, study design, sample size, response rate, age, and gender. The
prevalence of anxiety, depression, and insomnia, as well as outcome assessment methods and their cut-off points, were also collected. In the case of missing information, the necessary calculations were made.
The risk of bias in the primary studies was evaluated using the Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment scale (NOS) for the case-control designs, and a customized version was developed for cross-sectional studies by two independent authors. The NOS is a star system developed to judge studies over three broad aspects: the selection of the study groups, the comparability of the groups, and the ascertainment of either exposure or outcome of interest. Each item on the scale is scored from one, which can be adapted to the specific topic of interest, to two. Thus, the maximum attainable stars (scores) for each study is nine, and studies with less than five stars indicate a high risk of bias [12].
In order to estimate the pooled prevalence of mental disorders among the medical staff during the COVID-19 pandemic within the 95% confidence interval (CI), the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and insomnia were examined in different articles from all over the world. Since CIs and standard errors (SEs) were not reported in some studies, the binomial distribution was applied to calculate them.
In the case of proportions near boundaries (in this instance, prevalence near 100% or zero), metan command was used to exclude the studies with such prevalence from the pooled estimate. Hence, the metaprop command was applied to estimate the exact binomial and score test based on CI for these proportions [13]. Also, the ![](file:///C:UsersMISALI~1AppDataLocalTempmsohtmlclip1)