Mental health and sleep quality of surgical nurses during the covid-19

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The outbreak of new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has affected the mental well-being of individuals of all ages, especially surgical nurses. This study aimed to explore the association between self-reported mental health and subjective sleep quality of the Turkish surgical nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.MATERIAL AND METHODS: Data were collected from N = 453 surgical nurses using online snowball sampling through social media between May 10 and June 10, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were collected using the Nurse Information Form, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 Scale (GAD-7), and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).RESULTS: While 77.3% of them were determined to provide care to patients with COVID-19, and 2.0% of them had a positive COVID-19 test. A total of 76.2% of surgical nurses were stated to be negatively affected by the pandemic process and 56.2% of them were scared of infecting someone else with the virus. Surgical nurses had a mean GAD-7score of 8.7±5.1, a mean CES-D score of 27.8±12.5, and a mean PSQI score of 10.4±3.5. A positive and moderate level of relationship was found between PSQI and CES-D and GAD-7 levels (r=0.558; r=0.554; p<0.001, respectively).CONCLUSIONS: The surgical nurses were found to show signs of depression, had mild anxiety and had poor sleep quality. The poor sleep quality of the surgical nurses was found to be associated with anxiety and depression symptoms.