METER (Mental health emergency response) program: Findings of psychological impact status and factors associated with depression, anxiety and stress among healthcare workers in public hospital in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic

Nor Asiah Muhamad; Natasha Subhas; Normi Mustapha; Norni Abdullah; Muhammad Arif Muhamad Rasat; Rimah Melati Ab Ghani; Fatin Athira Tahir; Anne Nik Ismaliza Ishak; Vevehkanandar Sivasubramaniam; Alinazarine Hassan; William Wei Liang Goh; Kok Liang Teng; Ainul Izzah Abdul Manan; Rosmawati Mokhtar; Amrit Kaur Baljit Singh; Kher Shean Ng

doi:10.1371/journal.pgph.0001823

METER (Mental health emergency response) program: Findings of psychological impact status and factors associated with depression, anxiety and stress among healthcare workers in public hospital in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic

PLOS Glob Public Health. 2023 Apr 14;3(4):e0001823. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001823. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Nor Asiah Muhamad¹, Natasha Subhas², Normi Mustapha³, Norni Abdullah², Muhammad Arif Muhamad Rasat², Rimah Melati Ab Ghani¹, Fatin Athira Tahir⁴, Anne Nik Ismaliza Ishak², Vevehkanandar Sivasubramaniam², Alinazarine Hassan², William Wei Liang Goh², Kok Liang Teng², Ainul Izzah Abdul Manan², Rosmawati Mokhtar², Amrit Kaur Baljit Singh², Kher Shean Ng²

Affiliations

¹ Sector for Evidence Based Healthcare, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.
² Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah, Ministry of Health, Klang, Malaysia.
³ Faculty of Science & Technology, Open University Malaysia, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.
⁴ Institute for Public Health, National Institutes of Health, Ministry of Health, Shah Alam, Malaysia.

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has become the greatest challenge of the new millennium. Most healthcare workers (HCWs) experienced unprecedented levels of workload since the pandemic. This study aims to identify the prevalence and factors of depression, anxiety and stress among HCWs in Malaysian healthcare facilities in the midst of the pandemic due to the SARs-CoV-2.

Methods: An emergency response programme on mental health was conducted from June to September 2020. A standardized data collection form was distributed among the HCWs in the government hospital in Klang Valley. The form contained basic demographic information and the self-reported Malay version of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress scale (BM DASS-21).

Results: Of the1,300 staff who attended the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Covid-19 (MHPSS COVID-19) programme, 996 staff (21.6% male, 78.4% female) completed the online survey (response rate: 76.6%). Result showed that staff aged above 40 years old were almost two times more likely to have anxiety (AOR = 1.632; 95% CI = 1.141-2.334, p:0.007) and depression (AOR = 1.637; 95% CI = 1.1.06-2.423, p:0.014) as compared to staff who were less than 40 years old. Those who had direct involvement with COVID-19 patients were likely to suffer stress (AOR = 0.596; 95% CI = 0.418-0.849, p:0.004), anxiety (AOR = 0.706; 95% Ci = 0.503-0.990, p:0.044) and depression (AOR = 0.630; 95% Ci = 0.427-0.928, p:0.019). HCWs with stress (AOR = 0.638; 95% CI of 0.476-0.856, p = 0.003), anxiety (AOR = 0.720; 95% CI 0.542-0.958, p = 0.024) and depression (AOR = 0.657; 95% CI 0.480-0.901, p = 0.009) showed less confidence to treat critically ill patients and need psychological help during outbreak.

Conclusion: This study showed the importance of psychosocial support to reduce psychological distress among HCWs when working or coping during the COVID-19 pandemic or outbreak.

Copyright: © 2023 Muhamad et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Grants and funding

This METER program received no specific grant from any funding agency in public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. This publication is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Ministry of Health, Malaysia with NMRR registration ID: NMRR ID-21-02186-QTG.