Anxiety status and influencing factors of active psychological counselors in Shanghai under COVID-19 epidemic

Objective: To evaluate the impact of COVID-19 epidemic on anxiety status of active psychological counselors in Shanghai, China. Methods: We collected the demographic information of participants, cognition and attention to COVID-19, attitude towards the disappearance of COVID-19 and answers to the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) on the Shanghai online psychological counseling platform from Feb 4th, 2020 to Mar 11st, 2020.Multiple Logistic regression was used to analyze the associations between COVID-19 epidemic and State-anxiety and Trait-anxiety. Results: Of 704 participants with an average age of 33.24 years (ranging from 18 to 73 years), the mean State-scores and Trait-scores were 44.49±6.31 and 46.19±5.22, respectively.In multivariate Logistic regression analysis, after gender stratification and adjustment of related variables, we found that for males, engaging in relevant prevention and control work was associated with a lower risk for medium or high State-anxiety (OR=0.28, 95%CI:0.09-0.89), and holding a intensively positive attitude was associated with a lower risk for medium or high Trait-anxiety (OR=0.25, 95%CI:0.07-0.87);while for females, those with medical background had a lower risk for State-anxiety (OR=0.17, 95%CI:0.03-0.92), and those paying moderate attention to epidemic had a lower risk for Trait-anxiety (OR=0.22, 95%CI:0.07-0.69). Conclusion: COVID-19 epidemic had different effects on the anxiety status of psychological counselors with different characteristics.Psychological counselors who have poor cognition of the epidemic, excessive attention to the epidemic, low hope for the disappearance of the epidemic, and non-disease prevention and control profession are more susceptible to greater anxiety, which are the key objects of protection in the event of public health emergencies. © 2021, Editorial Department of Fudan University Journal of Medical Sciences. All right reserved.