Prevalence and related factors of post-traumatic stress disorder among medical staff members exposed to H7N9 patients

Tang, Liling; Pan, Lingling; Yuan, Liping; Zha, Lei

Demographics (occupation, gender, age, professional title, and years of work experience), frequency of contact with H7N9 patients, related training, and related experience all influenced the PCL-C scores. Statistically significant differences were observed between the scores of doctors and nurses (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01), but not between those of interns and doctors or nurses. The male and female participants also showed statistically significant differences in their PCL-C scores. The participants aged between 20 years and 30 years received the highest PCL-C scores, and statistically significant differences were observed between the avoidance syndrome and total PCL-C scores of participants aged 31 yearse40 years and those aged >40 years. Those participants with low professional titles and high contact frequency obtained higher PCL-C scores than the others. Those participants who received related training received lower intrusive syndrome, avoidance syndrome, and total PCL-C scores and higher hyper-arousal syndrome scores than those who did not receive such training. Those staff members with less than five years of work experience received higher scores in all dimensions than those who were working for more than five years (Table 3) .