Psychological Impact of Covid-19 Surge among Healthcare Workers in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Care Settings in Cross River State, Nigeria

Introduction: This study investigates the psychological impact of COVID-19 surge and the community spread among healthcare workers (HCWs) in the three tiers of health care delivery system in CRS. Materials and Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional design was adopted for this study. Total population sampling technique guided the recruitment of 776 consenting healthcare workers from one tertiary, one secondary and three randomly selected primary healthcare centres in the state. A well validated researcher developed, adapted and modified 21-item Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) online questionnaire with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient reliability of 0.76, used for data collection. Result: Majority of the respondents were nurses 460 (63.3%) and the mean age was 37.3. The incidence of depression, anxiety, stress and overall psychological problems were 288 (37.1%), 375 (48.3%) 316 (40.7%) and 402 (51.8%). The overall psychological problems were higher in females 331 (58.0%) than in males 71 (34.6%) (PR=1.67). Compared with HCWs who do not have personal contact with patients, HCWs who have personal contact with patients had a higher prevalence of psychological problems (PR=1.83). Conclusion: COVID-19 pandemic has negative psychological impacts on HCWs, and having a pre-existing medical condition increases the risk of impact. Word count: 194 words