The Anxiety Disorder Among the Healthcare Providers During The COVID-19 Infection Pandemic: A Systematic Review

Background: The outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) imposes a considerable psychological burden on the medical staff working in central hospitals for COVID-19. In this systematic review, we will discuss the prevalence and the risk factors of anxiety disorder among the frontline medical staff dealing with COVID-19 patients.

Methods: PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science data bases were systematically searched from December 01, 2019 to April 30, 2020 for related published articles. In all electronic databases, the following search strategy was implemented and these key words (in the title/abstract) were used: “COVID-19” OR “novel Coronavirus” AND “anxiety” OR “psychology” OR “psychiatry” OR “psychological distress” AND “nurses” or “clinicians”. We included only the cross sectional studies.

Results: Through the search strategy, we could identify eight related cross sectional articles about anxiety among the healthcare workers in central hospitals for COVID-19 infection. However, the authors scanned the reference lists of the included studies and identified multiple references. According to our findings, the frontline medical staff are at risk developing anxiety disorder which is mainly mild. Additionally, the female nurses are more susceptible to experience anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusion: Regarding to the outbreak of COVID-19 worldwide and the workload of the frontline medical staff dealing with COVID-19 patients, a particular attention should be given on the mental health of the healthcare provides.