IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i19p10182-d644898.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Cross-Sectional Relations of COVID-19 Fear and Stress to Psychological Distress among Frontline Healthcare Workers in Selangor, Malaysia

Author

Listed:
  • Natasha Subhas

    (Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah, Jalan Langat, Klang 41200, Malaysia)

  • Nicholas Tze-Ping Pang

    (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia)

  • Wei-Cheng Chua

    (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia)

  • Assis Kamu

    (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia)

  • Chong-Mun Ho

    (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia)

  • Isabel Shamini David

    (Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Banting, Banting 42700, Malaysia)

  • William Wei-Liang Goh

    (Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Segamat, KM6, Segamat 85000, Malaysia)

  • Yogaraja Indran Gunasegaran

    (Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah, Jalan Langat, Klang 41200, Malaysia)

  • Kit-Aun Tan

    (Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia)

Abstract

Previous pandemics have demonstrated short and long-term impacts on healthcare workers’ mental health, causing knock-on effects on patient care and professional functioning. Indeed, the present COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruption in social interactions and working conditions. Malaysia has been under the Recovery Movement Control Order since June 2020; however, with the upsurge of cases, healthcare workers face pressure not only from working in resource-deprived settings but also from the increasing patient load. The primary objective of the present study was to examine the cross-sectional relationship of COVID-19 fear and stress to psychological distress (operationalized as anxiety and depression) in healthcare workers. The present sample included 286 frontline healthcare workers from three hospitals in Selangor, Malaysia. Self-administered questionnaires containing sociodemographic and occupational items, the Malay versions of the Coronavirus Stress Measure scale, the Fear of Coronavirus-19 scale, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 were distributed via online platforms. Hierarchical multiple regression findings suggest that age, shift work, and COVID-19 stress consistently predicted anxiety and depression among frontline healthcare workers after adjusting for sociodemographic and occupational variables. The present findings suggest that frontline healthcare workers are not only inoculated against COVID-19 itself but also against the psychological sequelae of the pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Natasha Subhas & Nicholas Tze-Ping Pang & Wei-Cheng Chua & Assis Kamu & Chong-Mun Ho & Isabel Shamini David & William Wei-Liang Goh & Yogaraja Indran Gunasegaran & Kit-Aun Tan, 2021. "The Cross-Sectional Relations of COVID-19 Fear and Stress to Psychological Distress among Frontline Healthcare Workers in Selangor, Malaysia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-11, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:19:p:10182-:d:644898
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10182/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10182/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicola Magnavita & Paolo Maurizio Soave & Massimo Antonelli, 2021. "Prolonged Stress Causes Depression in Frontline Workers Facing the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study in a COVID-19 Hub-Hospital in Central Italy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-13, July.
    2. Luke Sy-Cherng Woon & Hatta Sidi & Nik Ruzyanei Nik Jaafar & Mohammad Farris Iman Leong Bin Abdullah, 2020. "Mental Health Status of University Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Post–Movement Lockdown Assessment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-20, December.
    3. Petri Böckerman & Alex Bryson & Pekka Ilmakunnas, 2013. "Does high involvement management lead to higher pay?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 176(4), pages 861-885, October.
    4. Böckerman, Petri & Bryson, Alex & Ilmakunnas, Pekka, 2012. "Does high involvement management improve worker wellbeing?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 660-680.
    5. Nicola Magnavita & Giovanni Tripepi & Reparata Rosa Di Prinzio, 2020. "Symptoms in Health Care Workers during the COVID-19 Epidemic. A Cross-Sectional Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-15, July.
    6. Hajar Mohd Salleh Sahimi & Nazirah Azman & Nik Ruzyanei Nik Jaafar & Tuti Iryani Mohd Daud & Azlin Baharudin & Ahmad Khaldun Ismail & Akramul Zikri Abdul Malek & Mohd Rohaizat Hassan & Azmawati Mohamm, 2021. "Health Anxiety and Its Correlations with Self-Perceived Risk and Attitude on COVID-19 among Malaysian Healthcare Workers during the Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-13, May.
    7. Lourdes Luceño-Moreno & Beatriz Talavera-Velasco & Yolanda García-Albuerne & Jesús Martín-García, 2020. "Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Levels of Resilience and Burnout in Spanish Health Personnel during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-29, July.
    8. Nicola Magnavita & Paolo Maurizio Soave & Walter Ricciardi & Massimo Antonelli, 2020. "Occupational Stress and Mental Health among Anesthetists during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-14, November.
    9. Abdallah Badahdah & Faryal Khamis & Nawal Al Mahyijari & Marwa Al Balushi & Hashil Al Hatmi & Issa Al Salmi & Zakariya Albulushi & Jaleela Al Noomani, 2021. "The mental health of health care workers in Oman during the COVID-19 pandemic," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 67(1), pages 90-95, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicholas Tze Ping Pang & Assis Kamu & Chong Mun Ho & Walton Wider & Mathias Wen Leh Tseu, 2022. "An Analysis by State on The Effect of Movement Control Order (MCO) 3.0 Due to COVID-19 on Malaysians’ Mental Health: Evidence from Google Trends," Data, MDPI, vol. 7(11), pages 1-9, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicola Magnavita, 2022. "Headache in the Workplace: Analysis of Factors Influencing Headaches in Terms of Productivity and Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-11, March.
    2. Alex Bryson & Lucy Stokes & David Wilkinson, 2023. "Is pupil attainment higher in well-managed schools?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 129-144, January.
    3. Nicola Magnavita & Paolo Maurizio Soave & Massimo Antonelli, 2021. "Prolonged Stress Causes Depression in Frontline Workers Facing the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study in a COVID-19 Hub-Hospital in Central Italy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-13, July.
    4. Sultan Ayoub Meo & Joud Mohammed Alkhalifah & Nouf Faisal Alshammari & Wejdan Saud Alnufaie, 2021. "Comparison of Generalized Anxiety and Sleep Disturbance among Frontline and Second-Line Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(11), pages 1-11, May.
    5. Cristina Civilotti & Daniela Acquadro Maran & Sergio Garbarino & Nicola Magnavita, 2022. "Hopelessness in Police Officers and Its Association with Depression and Burnout: A Pilot Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-12, April.
    6. Angela Sutan & Radu Vranceanu, 2019. "Managerial Behavior in the Lab: Information Disclosure, Decision Process and Leadership Style," Working Papers hal-02291210, HAL.
    7. Petri Böckerman & Alex Bryson & Antti Kauhanen & Mari Kangasniemi, 2020. "Does job design make workers happy?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(1), pages 31-52, February.
    8. Maria Rosaria Gualano & Tiziana Sinigaglia & Giuseppina Lo Moro & Stefano Rousset & Agnese Cremona & Fabrizio Bert & Roberta Siliquini, 2021. "The Burden of Burnout among Healthcare Professionals of Intensive Care Units and Emergency Departments during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-17, August.
    9. Joseph Blasi & Richard Freeman & Douglas Kruse, 2016. "Do Broad-based Employee Ownership, Profit Sharing and Stock Options Help the Best Firms Do Even Better?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 55-82, March.
    10. César Fernández-de-las-Peñas & Domingo Palacios-Ceña & Víctor Gómez-Mayordomo & María L. Cuadrado & Lidiane L. Florencio, 2021. "Defining Post-COVID Symptoms (Post-Acute COVID, Long COVID, Persistent Post-COVID): An Integrative Classification," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-9, March.
    11. Nicola Magnavita & Paolo Maurizio Soave & Massimo Antonelli, 2021. "A One-Year Prospective Study of Work-Related Mental Health in the Intensivists of a COVID-19 Hub Hospital," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-12, September.
    12. Petri Böckerman & Alex Bryson & Antti Kauhanen & Mari Kangasniemi, 2016. "Does Job Support Make Workers Happy?," DoQSS Working Papers 16-16, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    13. Ludivine Martin, 2020. "How to retain motivated employees in their jobs?," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 41(4), pages 910-953, November.
    14. White, Michael & Bryson, Alex, 2018. "HPWS in the Public Sector: Are There Mutual Gains?," IZA Discussion Papers 11965, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Yoko Asuyama, 2022. "Doing boss‐like tasks and worker well‐being: Job enrichment revisited," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 36(2), pages 196-230, June.
    16. Ying Yang & Yanan Xiao & Yulu Liu & Qiong Li & Changshuo Shan & Shulin Chang & Philip H.-S. Jen, 2021. "Mental Health and Psychological Impact on Students with or without Hearing Loss during the Recurrence of the COVID-19 Pandemic in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-28, February.
    17. Ludivine Martin & Uyen T. Nguyen-Thi & Caroline Mothe, 2021. "Human resource practices, perceived employability and turnover intention: does age matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(28), pages 3306-3320, June.
    18. Daniela Converso & Ilaria Sottimano & Giorgia Molinengo & Barbara Loera, 2019. "The Unbearable Lightness of the Academic Work: The Positive and Negative Sides of Heavy Work Investment in a Sample of Italian University Professors and Researchers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-16, April.
    19. Barry, Michael & Bryson, Alex & Gomez, Rafael & Kaufman, Bruce E. & Lomas, Guenther & Wilkinson, Adrian, 2018. "The," IZA Discussion Papers 11860, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Burdin, Gabriel & Kato, Takao, 2021. "Complementarity in Employee Participation Systems: International Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 14694, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:19:p:10182-:d:644898. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.