Psychosocial responses to COVID-19 among nurses in two hospitals: a mixed method study at Eastern Nepal

Most documented studies have focused on mental health status of health care workers during the pandemic but there are very few studies, focusing on mitigation of mental health problems among nurses.

To study psychosocial responses to COVID-19 and the effectiveness of intervention among nurses.

A mixed-method study was conducted, including 278 nurses from two COVID-19 hospitals of the province by purposive sampling. Depression, anxiety and stress and a composite measure of personal financial burden scales for quantitative; and interview guide for qualitative data were used. A psychosocial strengthening session was introduced and the effectiveness of the program was assessed after 4-5 weeks of intervention.

Mild, moderate and severe depression was found among 13.7%, 9.4% and 1.1% of the participants correspondingly. Mild, moderate, severe and extremely severe anxiety was found among 21.2%, 8.6%, 3.2% and 2.2% of the participants respectively. Stress was mild among 9% and moderate in 1.4% of the participants. Lack of PPE and fear of transmitting infection were found as frequent causes of problems. Mean scores of depression, anxiety and stress were significantly decreased after the psychosocial strengthening program.

Depression, anxiety and stress are common issues of nurses. Common causes of problems were lack of resources, fear of being infected and fear of transmitting to family members. The psychosocial strengthening program was effective in reducing the problems.