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. 2023 Feb 24;11(1):2182306.
doi: 10.1080/21642850.2023.2182306. eCollection 2023.

Anxiety, depression, and uncertainty appraisal and factors affecting uncertainty risk and opportunity appraisal of health care workers in Korea during the COVID-19 outbreak: Uncertainty risk and opportunity appraisal

Soo Young An  1 , Jong Sun Ok  2 , Hyeongsu Kim  3
Affiliations

Anxiety, depression, and uncertainty appraisal and factors affecting uncertainty risk and opportunity appraisal of health care workers in Korea during the COVID-19 outbreak: Uncertainty risk and opportunity appraisal

Soo Young An et al. Health Psychol Behav Med. .

Abstract

Background: Due to the prolonged period of COVID-19, the uncertainty related to COVID-19 is bound to increase for healthcare workers (HCWs) in tertiary medical institutions as much as for the HCWs in dedicated hospitals.

Purpose: To assess anxiety, depression, and uncertainty appraisal, and to determine the factors affecting uncertainty risk and opportunity appraisal experienced by HCWs at the forefront of COVID-19 treatment.

Method: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. The participants were HCWs at a tertiary medical center in Seoul. HCWs included medical (doctors, nurses) and non-medical (nutritionists, pathologists, radiologists, office workers, etc.) personnel. Self-reported structured questionnaires (patient health questionnaire, generalized anxiety disorder scale, and uncertainty appraisal) were obtained. Finally, responses from 1337 people were used to evaluate factors affecting uncertainty risk and opportunity appraisal using a quantile regression analysis.

Results: The average ages of medical and non-medical HCWs were 31.69 ± 7.87 and 38.66 ± 11.42 years, and the proportion of females was high. The rates of moderate to severe depression (23.23%) and anxiety (6.83%) were higher in medical HCWs. The uncertainty risk score was higher than the uncertainty opportunity score for all the HCWs. Factors that increased uncertainty opportunity were a decrease in depression in medical HCWs and a decrease in anxiety in non-medical HCWs. Increase in age was directly proportional to uncertainty opportunity in both groups.

Conclusion: There is a need to devise a strategy to reduce uncertainty among HCWs who inevitably face various infectious diseases that appear in the near future. In particular, since there are various types of non-medical as well as medical HCWs in medical institutions who can prepare an intervention plan that comprehensively considers the characteristics of each occupation and the distribution of risks and opportunities of uncertainty will be able to improve the quality of life of HCWs and further promote the health of the people.

Keywords: COVID-19; Uncertainty; health care workers; opportunity; risk.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figures

Photograph of medical healthcare workers’ uncertainty risk appraisal factors (depression, anxiety, physical burden, and psychological burden), of non-medical healthcare workers’ uncertainty risk appraisal factors (anxiety, age, and status of daily living score).
Figure 1.
Factors affecting the uncertainty risk appraisal.
Photograph of medical healthcare workers’ uncertainty opportunity appraisal factors (depression, age, marital status, and status of daily living score), of non-medical healthcare workers’ uncertainty opportunity appraisal factors (anxiety and age).
Figure 2.
Factors affecting the uncertainty opportunity appraisal.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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