Burden of predominant psychological reactions among the healthcare workers and general during COVID-19 pandemic phase: a systematic review and meta-analysis

  1. Bhaskar Thakur
  2. Mona Pathak

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Abstract

Aim

Present systematic review and meta-analysis examined the burden of psychological reactions predominantly anxiety, depression, stress and insomnia during novel COVID-19 pandemic phase among the frontline healthcare, non-frontline healthcare and general.

Methodology

PubMed, EMBASE and SCOPUS were searched for studies between Jan 1, 2020 to May 25, 2020. Brief protocol of the systematic review was registered with the PROSPERO database, (CRD42020186229).Any study that reported the burden of at least one of psychological reactions including anxiety or depression or stress or insomnia was eligible. Heterogeneity was assessed using I 2 statistic and results were synthesized using random effect meta-analysis.

Results

Out of 52eligible studies, 43 reported anxiety, 43 reported depression, 20 reported stress and 11 reported insomnia. Overall prevalence for anxiety, depression, stress and insomnia were 26.6%, 26.2%,26.2% and 34.4% respectively. Anxiety and depression were found highest among the COVID-19 patients (43.3% and 51.75 respectively). Apart from COVID-19 patients, prevalence of anxiety, depression, stress and insomnia were found highest among the frontline healthcare (27.2%, 32.1%,55.6% and 34.4% respectively) as compared to general healthcare workers (26.9%, 15.7%, 7.0% and 34.0% respectively) and general population (25.9%, 25.9%,25.4% and 29.4% respectively).

Conclusion

Anxiety and depression were found highest among the COVID-19 patients. Apart from COVID-19 patients, the anxiety, depression, stress and insomnia were more prevalent among frontline healthcare workers compared to general. Such increased prevalence is prompting towards the global mental health emergency. Therefore a call of urgent attention and pan-region effective mental-health intervention are required to mitigate these psychological reactions.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.02.21249126: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    2.1 Data Source and Search strategy: A systematic literature search in electronic databases including Embase, PubMed and Scopus between January 1, 2020 and May 25, 2020 was used in order to find the eligible studies.
    Embase
    suggested: (EMBASE, RRID:SCR_001650)
    PubMed
    suggested: (PubMed, RRID:SCR_004846)
    Additionally, a supplementary search was conducted using Google Scholar. 2.2 Eligibility criteria: All the published or unpublished studies were considered eligible if they met the following eligible criteria: (1) described the assessment of at least one of mental-illness including psychological anxiety or depression or stress or insomnia as an impact of COVID-19; (2) used the scientific rating scale to assess the mental-illness; and (3) the scale based findings were reported in terms of overall prevalence and graded prevalence (mild, moderate and severe).
    Google Scholar
    suggested: (Google Scholar, RRID:SCR_008878)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    4.2 Limitations: Around 37% of the studies were average or poor in their quality. Data were not collected based on the appropriate sampling design from a well-defined population in majority of the studies as those were collected from online survey on social media platform. Only two studies depicted the calculation of representative sample size or power assessment. Further observation of a wide heterogeneity in the reported results provides clue of lower confidence in graded evidence. Included studies are the cross-sectional studies and hence it is hard to comment on the temporal trends of mental health problems during this continuing ongoing pandemic.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.01.02.21249126v1 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.4103/ijcm.ijcm_1007_20