AnxietyofMedicalStaffandPsychologicalFactorsaffectingit duringtheCovid-19PandemicinIran;aSystematicReview Study

The Covid-19 epidemic in the world has triggered innumerable stress and anxiety among people. Since medical staff play a leading role in the fight against Covid-19, they experience the highest level of risk and anxiety. Consequently, as a systematic study, this study aimed to investigate the anxiety of medical staff and the psychological factors affecting it during the pandemic of Covid-19 in Iran.

In the current study, a systematic review was done to search for Persian database articles, Scientific Information Database (SID), Magiran, and Google Scholar search engine from 2018 to 2021 using Persian keywords; anxiety, coronavirus, Covid-19, medical staff, nurses. To select studies and extract the data, the titles of all articles obtained were reviewed by two people, and duplicates were removed. Information about selected articles, including first author, year of publication, study title, study population, study method, sample size, study tools, and finally, the results were recorded in the data extraction form.

In the initial stage of the studies search, 624 studies were reviewed. Due to lack of relevance to the subject and duplication and lack of access to the full article, 610 studies were deleted. Lastly, 14 studies were used to write this study. Numerous psychological factors (stress, depression, burnout, resilience, family social support, suicidal ideation, emotion regulation, anxiety sensitivity, psychological stubbornness, caring behaviors, rumination, health beliefs, and physical activity) played a role in the incidence and prediction of anxiety. Among the studies, five were related to 2021, and 9 were related to 2020. The study population in three studies is Ardabil, in two studies is Malayer, in two studies is Jahrom, and in one study are Zahedan, Zarandieh, Alborz, Kerman, Torbat Heydariyeh, Miyaneh, and Rasht. The instrument in 10 studies was CDAS, two studies used Beck anxiety, and two studies used DASS.

The results of this study disclosed that various psychological factors are influential in the incidence of anxiety in health care professionals, each of which can play a role in the incidence of anxiety. Consequently, recognizing the cause of these psychological disorders in these people is essential to maintain the mental health of these people by using appropriate methods.