The Comprehensive Analyses of Mental Status in COVID-19 Patients, Health Care Workers and General Population During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The mental status of patients with Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) (PCs), health care workers (HCWs) exposed to the COVID-19, and general population (GP) has be reported. However, no studies comprehensively investigated their mental status. Thus, this study investigated the prevalence, comparisons and risk factors of mental problems among three groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: 1300 participants including 137 PCs, 159 HCWs and 1003 GP were enrolled. The anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress symptom (PTSS) were assessed by the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C). Findings: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the prevalence of anxiety, depression and PTSS were 21.7%, 76.1% and 19.5% in PCs, 9.3%, 25.3% and 9.5% in HCWs, and 12.7%, 25.8% and 6.9% in GP, respectively. The SAS, SDS and PCL-C total scores differed among three groups after controlling for covariates (all, p<0.01). The SAS, SDS and PCL-C total scores were significantly higher in PCs than HCWs and GP (all, p<0.01). Moreover, the distribution of age grouped differed between HCWs with and without depression (p<0.05). The frequency of having friend or relative infected was higher in PCs with than without PTSS as well as the higher married frequency in GP with than without PTSS (both, p<0.01). Further analyses showed the correlation of having friend or relative infected with PCL-C total score in PCs (p=0.004, OR=4.36, 95%CI: 1.60-11.91), the association of age 30-40 years with SDS total score in HCWs (p=0.014, OR=0.35, 95%CI: 0.16-0.81) and the relationship between married and PCL-C total score in GP (p=0.004, OR=3.89, 95%CI: 1.59-9.52). Interpretation: Our data revealed the high prevalence of mental problems among PCs, HCWs and GP, and more serious mental problems in PCs than HCWs and GP as well as the significant effects of having friend or relative infected, married and age 30-40 years on mental problems in the different population during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, these findings further suggested that mental problems in the different population should adopt the different psychological interventions to reduce their mental distress caused by the COVID-19. Funding Statement: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81771439), Jiangsu Provincial Key Research and Development Program (BE2018662), Jiangsu Provincial Health Commission Science Research Program (QNRC2016228, H2019056 and LGY2018010), Jiangsu Provincial Six Talent Peaks Project (WSN-165), Suzhou Municipal Sci-Tech Bureau Program (SS2019009), and CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology (KLMH2019K03). Declaration of Interests: The authors declared no conflict of interest. Ethics Approval Statement: The protocol, questionnaire and informed consent of this study were approved by the Institutional Review Board at the Affiliated Guangji Hospital of Soochow University.