Burnout, Anxiety, Stress, and Depression among Iranian Nurses: Before and During The Covid-19 Outbreak

Abstract

Frontline nurses face many health challenges during the COVID-19 epidemics, are directly at risk during treatment and care for COVID-19 patients. As a result, these factors can have an impact on nurses' job performance and health. The purpose of this study was to compare burnout, anxiety, stress, and depression in nurses before and during the COVID-19 outbreak. This was a cross sectional study. We assessed 266 frontline nurses before and 242 frontline nurses during the COVID-19 outbreak with one year apart in 2019 and 2020 (two-stage sampling). The data were collected using demographic questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Questionnaire and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale in public hospitals in Southern Iran. There were no significant differences between groups in subscales of burnout (p > 0.05). Anxiety, stress and depression scores significantly increased during the COVID-19 outbreak compared with before the COVID-19 outbreak (p < 0.05). There were significant differences between groups in level of anxiety (p < 0.001) and stress (p = 0.04). Before the COVID-19 outbreak, burnout predicted 11%, 15% and 13% of the variance of anxiety, stress and depression, respectively. In addition, stress, monthly working hours and shift were variables that predicted 16% of the variance of burnout before COVID-19. The results of the present study showed that burnout during COVID-19 did not change significantly compared with before COVID-19. Anxiety, stress and depression increased significantly during COVID-19 compared with before COVID-19.