The impact of COVID 19 pandemic on the mental health of healthcare workers and University students

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Mustafa Afifi

Jumeira University, UAE

: Int J Ment Health Psychiatry

Abstract

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Few articles investigated the COVID-19 impact on Health Care Workers’ mental health in UAE, and mainly in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. This research focuses on investigating the effect of COVID-19 on workers' mental health in one of Sharjah medical Centers and comparing it with the impact of the pandemic on university students. The sample was captured from one of Sharjah Medical Centres. Fifty healthcare workers were selected consisting of nurses, physicians with different specialties, managers with different positions, and other workers. Besides, 150 students were selected from Jumeira University from different colleges. The tools used were the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9) which is a self-administrative questionnaire that consists of 9 questions with four Likert scales that measures depression symptoms. (Kroenke K, 2001). The second was General Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) that considered seven items scale for measuring anxiety rated by four points Likert Scale. (Spitzer RL, 2006). The Third questionnaire is the Primary Care Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Screen (PC-PTSD-5), which is a five items questionnaire that is intended to determine the individual who possibly suffering from PSTD. The answers for these questions containing two possible options as “Yes” or “No”. (Prins A, 2003). Lastly, the fourth questionnaire is the Perceived Stress Scale which is considered the classic measuring stress tool. It helps in recognizing how different conditions impact people’s feelings of stress, it is comprised of ten items that are used to measure the stress level. The ten items scored by using five points Likert Scale each point refers to a different score. (Cohen, 1993). In our results we will display the correlation between these variables each other and the demographic factors as age, sex, profession, etc. We will also compare between students and health care workers mental health profile during the pandemic.

Biography

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Mustafa Afifi held his MBChB, Masters in Internal Medicine, two post graduate diplomas in Mental Health, and Primary Health Care. Then he had another post graduate Diploma in General Management and finally his terminal degree of DrPH. He also got a Masters in Health Professional Education. He worked as a Consultant Mental Health for the Ministry of Health Headquarter in the UAE. He then joined academia since 2014 because of his interest in life-long learning and cultivating self-directed learning among university students. He has many PubMed Indexed publications in mental health, psychiatry, Non-Communicable Diseases, gender issues, and medical education. He plays tennis, squash and practices scuba-diving. He is now the Dean of Academic Affairs at Jumeira University, Dubai, UAE.