Level of Work-Related Anxiety and Potential Causes of Anxiety in Healthcare Workers in the Emergency Department

The present study evaluated the work-related anxiety scores of healthcare workers in emergency departments (ED) and aimed to determine the factors affecting these scores.

The data was obtained through a survey administered to the emergency staff. Beck's Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) work anxiety interview were used to predict and determine the type of anxiety experienced by the participants. The survey was administered to 147 volunteers, and questionnaires from 130 participants were included in the study.

It was found that 43.8% of the participants had a BAI score greater than 7. The study results showed a negative correlation and a linear regression model between age and the BAI score. Additionally, the BAI score was significantly higher in female, singles, physicians, those who were dissatisfied with their jobs, and those who were dissatisfied with their salaries (p<0.05). The results also showed that having a history of anxiety disorder or depression, being a physician, and being dissatisfied with one's job were 6.277, 5.583, and 4.005 times higher, respectively, in terms of suspicion of anxiety (p<0.001). In the MINI job anxiety interview, work-related posttraumatic stress disorder (38.6%) was predicted most frequently, and indiscriminative work-related social phobia (5.3%) was predicted least frequently in participants at risk for anxiety according to the BAI score.

This study suggests that teaching healthcare workers how to cope with workplace trauma and workplace-related situational phobias can be an effective solution to prevent anxiety disorders in healthcare workers working in ED.