| ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2023 | Volume
: 4
| Issue : 1 | Page : 10-16 |
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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 Omicron variant and psychological distress among frontline nurses in a major COVID-19 center: Implications for supporting psychological well-being
Hanita Dahiya, Harshita Goswami, Chanchal Bhati, Ekta Yadav, Bhanupriya, Divya Tripathi, Deepa Rani, Deepika, Gayatri Pal, Geeta Saini, Lalita Yadav, Rajesh Kumar
Department of Nursing, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
Correspondence Address:
Dr. Rajesh Kumar
Department of Nursing, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh - 249 203, Uttarakhand
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
DOI: 10.4103/jopcs.jopcs_22_22
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Background: Coronavirus outbreak severely affected the psychological health of frontline health-care workers, including nurses. Nurses relatively face many more psychological problems compared to other health-care workers. This study aimed to assess nurses' fear, stress, and anxiety status during the Omicron, a new variant of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, outbreak in India. Materials and Methods: This questionnaire survey included 350 frontline nurses working at a tertiary care teaching hospital in North India. The information was collected using the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale, Impact of Event Scale-Revised, and Fear of COVID-19 Scale. Nurses working in the hospital since COVID-19 outbreak were included in the study. Appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to compute the results. Results: Nurses hospitalized after contracting an infection (odds ratio [OR] – 3.492, 95% confidence interval – 1.644–9.442, P < 0.002) and attended training on COVID-19 (OR – 2.644, 95% CI – 1.191–5.870, P < 0.017) reported high distress than their counterparts. Likewise, nurses hospitalized after contracting an infection (β = 3.862, P < 0.001 vs. β = 2.179, P < 0.001) and have no training exposure on COVID-19 management and care (β = 2.536, P = 0.001 vs. β = 0.670, P = 0.039) reported higher fear and anxiety, respectively. Likewise, married participants (β = 1.438, P < 0.036) who lost their friends and colleagues in the pandemic (β = 0.986, P = 0.020) reported being more frightened and anxious. Conclusions: Participants reported experiencing psychological burdens, especially nurses hospitalized after contracting an infection and who lost their friends and colleagues to COVID-19. High psychological distress may be a potential indicator of future psychiatric morbidity. Authors recommend a variant-specific training to improve nurses' mental health to combat the pandemic.
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