Mental Health Conditions of Persons in the Community and of Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Integrative Review

Abstract

Background: The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are not limited to physical aspects among infected people, but also include psychological aspects among uninfected people, such as community people and health care workers. The study aimed to describe the current mental health conditions prevalent among communities and health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: An integrative review was conducted following the steps and framework of Whittemore and Knafl. Relevant articles were obtained from electronic databases, such as Science Direct, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar using the keywords: “mental health”, “Stress”, “Depression”, “COVID-19”, “SARS-CoV-2”, “health care workers”, and “community people”. Eighteen articles were selected that met the inclusion criteria: full text, written in English, published in 2020, original research and review articles discussing mental health conditions among health care workers and the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Mental health conditions among community people included lower psychological well-being, anxiety, depression/depressive symptoms, fear, stress including acute stress reaction; psychological distress; COVID-19 related stress; and stress symptoms, and grief among patients’ family members. Among health care workers, mental health conditions were identified as anxiety, depression/depressive symptoms, fear, insomnia, poor sleep quality, isolation, emotional disturbances, moral injury, post-traumatic disorder, burnout, and secondary traumatization. Conclusion: Findings of this integrative review were expected to provide evidence of the mental health conditions among groups of uninfected persons and describe how they managed their health during the pandemic. Identifying mental health conditions among community people and health care workers is essential to prevent adverse psychological conditions. Mental health support practices should be made accessible to at risk persons and discriminatory actions toward frontline workers should be eliminated. Various strategies are proposed to manage mental health conditions such as rapid access to counseling, accessing information from reliable sources, maintaining healthy lifestyle and strengthening adequate coping patterns.