DOI: 10.5061/dryad.w0vt4b8sz
title: Data from: Assessment of fear, anxiety, obsession and functional impairment due to COVID-19 amongst health-care workers and trainees: a cross-sectional study in Nepal

description: Background: The emergence of the COVID-19 epidemic threw the
 world into turmoil. The medical community bore the brunt of the
 pandemic's toll. It became clear that there was a shortage of medical
 personnel and resources. Long work hours, and a lack of personal
 protective equipment (PPE) and social support all had an influence on
 mental health. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted
 among Lumbini Medical College Teaching Hospital students and employees in
 Palpa, Nepal. Data entailing their demographic details, pre-existing
 comorbidities, or death in the family due to COVID-19 was collected using
 a self-administered survey. In addition, the level of fear,
 anxiety, obsession, and functional impairment due to COVID-19 was recorded
 using previously validated respective scales. Results: In total,
 403 health care workers and trainees participated in our study. The
 average age of the study participants was 23±4 years, and more than half
 of them (n=262, 65%) were females. A significant association was found
 between fear score with age (p=0.04), gender (p-value &lt;0.01) and
 occupation (p-value&lt;0.001). Participants suffering from chronic
 diseases (p-value=0.36), and those who had experienced a COVID-19 death in
 the family (p-value=0.18), were not found to be significantly obsessed
 with COVID-19. However, for those who had experienced a COVID-19 death in
 the family (p-value=0.51) and age (p-value=0.34), these factors were not
 found to be significantly associated with higher anxiety levels. Nursing
 students suffered from a significantly greater functional impairment than
 people of other medical professionals (mean score=269.15, p-value &lt;
 0.001). A moderately positive correlation was observed between fear,
 anxiety, obsession, and functional impairment scales.
 Conclusion: Unpredictability and uncertainty are considerable in
 the aftermath of the pandemic. People's psychological well-being
 deteriorates due to the repercussions of developing a severe sickness,
 being isolated, and confronting the stigma of being infected. With the
 health care personnel at the front lines, the stakes are
 considerably higher for them. This study revealed various
 socio-demographic characteristics as risk factors for psychological stress
 in the healthcare personnel of Nepal during the COVID-19
 pandemic. A viable answer to this quandary might be adequate psychosocial
 intervention by health care authorities, increased social support, and the
 introduction of better mental health management measures for healthcare
 personnel.
description: This cross-sectional study
 was carried out among the staff and students of Lumbini Medical College
 Teaching Hospital, Palpa, Nepal. The sample size computed using OpenEpi
 was 384, after taking a confidence level of 95% and a frequency outcome
 factor of 50%. For more robust results, we included 406 participants in
 the survey, of which 3 participants who did not consent to participate
 were excluded from the study. The cohort of healthcare workers and
 trainees in the present study included doctors, nurses, other health
 personnel, medical students, and nursing students. The present study was
 approved by the Institutional Review Committee of LMCTH vide letter
 IRC-LMC 06-G/020. The questionnaire was in English
 and disseminated among the medical and nursing students, doctors, nurses,
 and other health care staff working at Lumbini Medical College Teaching
 Hospital (LMCTH) through social media. Complete confidentiality of the
 participants was maintained by not asking them for any such
 information. The
 questionnaire consisted of five parts. The first part of the questionnaire
 consisted of demographic information such as gender, age, current
 occupation, monthly family income. Information regarding respondent's
 comorbidity, previous contact with any COVID-19 positive case, and if
 there was a COVID-19 death in their family was also recorded.
 The second part of the
 questionnaire consisted of the fear of the Covid-19 scale adopted from
 Ahorsu et al.<sup>1</sup> Fear of the COVID-19 scale is a
 unidimensional scale with robust psychometric properties and consists of
 seven items and assessed via five-point Likert scale method (strongly
 disagree = 1; strongly agree = 5). The third part of the
 questionnaire was used to see the obsession of Covid-19 in the
 participants. The scale was adapted from Lee.<sup>2</sup> There
 were four items to perceive too much coronavirus thought among the
 participants over the last two weeks. The participants would rate the
 items using a five-point time anchored scale (0 = not at all; 4 = nearly
 every day over the last two weeks). A score of seven or more signified
 that the person was overthinking of coronavirus. The fourth part was the
 coronavirus anxiety scale. It consisted of five items developed by
 Lee.<sup>3</sup> The participants would rate the items using a
 five-point time anchored scale (0 = not at all; 4 =nearly every day over
 the last two weeks). The participant scoring of nine or more in the
 questions was considered anxious about the coronavirus. The fifth part was
 the work and social adjustment scale (WSAS), a measure of functional
 impairment adapted from, where the participant could score on a scale of
 0-8 where 0 meant not at all impaired, and eight means very severely
 impaired.<sup>4</sup> A respondent with a total WSAS score
 above 20 was considered to have moderately severe or severe
 psychopathology, scores between 10 and 20 were considered to have a
 significant functional impairment, but less severe clinical symptomatology
 and those who scored less than ten were considered to be considered to
 have subclinical impairments. Data were analyzed using
 Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 (IBM Corp.,
 Armonk, New York). The Shapiro-Wilk test assessed normality. Descriptive
 statistics were used to report frequencies and proportions for the
 categorical responses. The disparity between categorical variables was
 checked using the Chi-square test. The association between age and vaccine
 acceptance was assessed through binary logistic regression. In the case of
 continuous data, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used.
 Spearman's rho was used to assess the correlation between the scales,
 and P-value &lt;0.05 was considered significant in all
 cases. References: 1. Ahorsu DK, Lin C-Y, Imani V, Saffari M, Griffiths MD, Pakpour AH. The Fear of COVID-19 Scale: Development and Initial Validation. <i>Int J Ment Health Addict</i>. Published online March 27, 2020:1-9. doi:10.1007/s11469-020-00270-8 2. Lee SA. How much “Thinking” about COVID-19 is clinically dysfunctional? <i>Brain Behav Immun</i>. 2020;87:97-98. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.067 3. Lee SA. Coronavirus Anxiety Scale: A brief mental health screener for COVID-19 related anxiety. <i>Death Stud</i>. 2020;44(7):393-401. doi:10.1080/07481187.2020.1748481 4. Mundt JC, Marks IM, Shear MK, Greist JH. The Work and Social Adjustment Scale: a simple measure of impairment in functioning. <i>Br J Psychiatry</i>. 2002;180(12):461-464. doi:10.1192/bjp.180.5.461