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. 2017 Feb 21;8(8):12784-12791.
doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.14498.

Prevalence of psychological symptoms among Ebola survivors and healthcare workers during the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone: a cross-sectional study

Dong Ji  1   2 , Ying-Jie Ji  1   2 , Xue-Zhang Duan  1   2 , Wen-Gang Li  1   2 , Zhi-Qiang Sun  1   2 , Xue-Ai Song  1   2 , Yu-Hua Meng  1   2 , Hong-Mei Tang  1   2 , Fang Chu  1   2 , Xiao-Xia Niu  1 , Guo-Feng Chen  1 , Jin Li  1   2 , Hui-Juan Duan  1   2
Affiliations

Prevalence of psychological symptoms among Ebola survivors and healthcare workers during the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone: a cross-sectional study

Dong Ji et al. Oncotarget. .

Abstract

The 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic was considered to be the largest and most complex outbreak, which caused 11,310 reported deaths. The epidemic disease can cause a mental health crisis, however, there is only a small amount of scientific literature available related to this health issue so far. We evaluated the psychological symptoms of 161 participants including Ebola survivors and healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, analyzed the impact of job classification, education level on psychological status. We found that the order of total general severity index (GSI) scores from high to low was EVD survivors, SL medical staff, SL logistic staff, SL medical students, and Chinese medical staff. There were 5 dimensions (obsession-compulsion, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, and paranoid ideation) extremely high in EVD survivors. GSI were associated with university education negatively. We believed our information is necessary to develop the comprehensive emergency response plan for emerging infectious disease outbreak.

Keywords: SCL-90-R; ebola virus disease; emergency response plan; emerging infectious disease; psychological symptoms.

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Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. SCL-90-R clinical profiles of EVD survivors and the healthcare workers during the 2014-2015 Ebola Outbreak in Sierra Leone
(A) The T scores distributions on dimensions of 161 participants. (B) The percents of participants with T score more than 2 by 10 dimensions. Note: SOM, somaticization; O-C, obsession-compulsion; I-S, interpersonal sensitivity; DEP, depression; ANX, anxiety; HOS, hostility; PHOB, phobic anxiety; PAR, paranoid ideation; PSY, psychoticism; ADD, additional items; SD, standard deviation. Total sample size across all categories was 161 and for Chinese norms was 1,890.
Figure 2
Figure 2. The correlation between GSI,PST, PSDI scores and the education levels of participants
Note: GSI, general severity index; PST, the positive symptom yotal ; PSDI, positive symptom distress index
Figure 3
Figure 3. SCL-90-R clinical profiles of Chinese medical staff during the 2014–2015 Ebola Outbreak in Sierra Leone
(A) The T scores distributions on dimensions of 41 Chinese medical staff. (B) The percents of participants with T score more than 2 by 10 dimensions. Note: SOM, somaticization; O-C, obsession-compulsion; I-S, interpersonal sensitivity; DEP, depression; ANX, anxiety; HOS, hostility; PHOB, phobic anxiety; PAR, paranoid ideation; PSY, psychoticism, SD, standard deviation.
Figure 4
Figure 4. The flow chart of SCL-90-R data collection
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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