Abstract:

Objective: This study aimed to examine the psychosocial adjustment and its association with occupation, hospital unit, social support, and Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) attitude in the healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in two pandemic hospitals with a total of 557 participants, which included healthcare professionals of all occupations and all hospital units. Socio-demographic characteristics and COVID-19 attitude and knowledge were evaluated with the data form. The hospital anxiety-depression scale (HADS), beck hopelessness scale (BHS), maslach burnout inventory (MBI), fear of COVID-19 scale (FC-19S), and multidimensional scale of perceived social support (MSPSS) were used to assess psychosocial adjustment and social support. Results: Females had higher levels of HADS-anxiety, FC-19S, MBI-emotional exhaustion, and MSPSS-friend and MSPSS-significant other subscales (p<0.05). Scores of BHS (highest in resident doctors and caregivers), HADS-anxiety (highest in resident doctor), HADS-depression (highest in caregivers), and MBI-emotional exhaustion and MBI-depersonalization (highest in the resident doctors) were seen to differ with occupation (p<0.05). Scores of HADS-Depression, FC-19S, and MBI-emotional exhaustion were higher in participants working at the intensive care unit (p<0.05). Having COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction examination history was related to higher scores of BHS, HADS-anxiety, HADS-depression, and FC-19S, and lower scores of MSPSS scores (p<0.05). MSPSS scores were negatively correlated with HADS-anxiety, HADS-depression, MBI-emotional exhaustion, and MBI-depersonalization scores. Conclusion: Results indicate that gender, occupation, and hospital unit influence the psychosocial adjustment of healthcare professionals. Moreover, social support, COVID-19 attitude, and psychosocial adjustment are interrelated with each other.

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