Caring for patients in the Covid era: Are the quality of life the same for doctors and nursing staff?

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic has represented one of the most stressful events of recent times and has placed enormous psychological pressure on doctors and nurses.

Aims: The objective of this work is to evaluate the psychological impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on Spanish nurses and doctors, and to identify factors related to their mental health.

Methods: The study is a descriptive study and examined 812 doctors and 768 nurses. The dependent variables were health-related quality of life, anxiety, depression, perceived stress and insomnia. Participants completed the Health-related Quality of Life-Questionnaire, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item-Scale, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, the Impact Event Scale-Revised, and the Insomnia Severity Index. Sociodemographic and Covid-related data were also recorded. Descriptive statistics, univariable analysis and multivariable linear regression models were used.

Results: A greater proportion of nurses than doctors suffered clinical anxiety, depression and insomnia (56.84 % vs 45.81 p-value<0.0001, 64.67 % vs 53.39 p-value<0.0001, and 23.04 % vs 18.02 p-value 0.01, respectively). Although in our study nurses were more likely to suffer clinical anxiety, stress and insomnia than doctors, our results nevertheless showed that there were no differences in terms of quality of life. Different factors related to mental health were identified for doctors and nurses. Nurses working in care homes or geriatric services (OR = 4.13, IC95% 1.71-9.99, p-value 0.002), and in services with greatest contact with Covid-19 patients (OR = 1.71,IC95% 1.10-2.68, p-value 0.02) were more likely to suffer depression.

Conclusions: Our study confirms that doctors and nurses are at high risk of clinical anxiety, depression, stress or insomnia during the Covid-19 pandemic.