Investigation on psychological status of community epidemic prevention and control personnel in Beijing during the outbreak of COVID 19

Objective To investigate the psychological status of community epidemic prevention and control personnel in Beijing community during the epidemic period of COVID 19, and provide the basis for timely psychological intervention.

Methods The "Questionnaire Star" online evaluation method was adopted. The anxiety self-assessment scale SAS and the self-made demographic survey questionnaires were conducted among 191 and 257 community epidemic prevention and control personnel on February 1st and March 2nd, 2020, respectively, and the results of the two evaluations were compared and the possible causes were analyzed.

Results At the beginning of February, the SAS score of community epidemic prevention and control personnel (34.36 ±5.71) was significantly higher than that of Chinese adult norm (29.78 ±10.07), and the difference was statistically significant(P < 0.05). At the beginning of March, the SAS score of community epidemic prevention and control personnel was (30.57 ±4.29)and there was no significant difference with Chinese adult norm (P > 0.05). SAS score and anxiety detection rate in early March were lower than those in early February, and the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). The results of multiple linear regression analysis showed that SAS score of personnel without family support increased by 4.787 points (P < 0.05);the SAS score of personnel who occasionally worried and/or very worried about being infected increased by 0.713 and 2.042 points respectively (P < 0.05), compared with personnel who did not worry about being infected. At the beginning of March, there was no significant difference of SAS scores of personnel in different demographic communities (P > 0.05).

Conclusions During the outbreak of COVID 19, with the diagnosed cases increasing, community prevention and control personnel all had certain anxiety. However, with the epidemic control and timely psychological intervention, the psychological status of the community epidemic prevention and control personnel had basically returned to normal. Paying attention to the family support of these personnel and humanistic care can effectively reduce the anxiety.