Mental health status among family members of health care workers in Ningbo, China during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak: a Cross-sectional Study

Yuchen Ying; Fanqian Kong; Binbin Zhu; Yunxin Ji; Zhongze Lou; Liemin Ruan

It is interesting to note that, compared to participants who were HCWs, enterprise workers were more likely to develop depressive symptoms (OR=1.750, 95%CI:1.104-2.776). Most enterprise workers have no medical background, and thus lack sufficient cognitive ability to raise awareness of COVID-19 outbreak. Their psychological endurance is lacking during a pandemic, and therefore may develop depressive symptom 48 . In addition, many enterprises were forced to shut down their work and production during the epidemic in China, resulting in the loss of income for their employees. However, income reduction was the predicting factor with the highest correlation of depression among enterprise workers, according to the results of a previous study during SARS in 2003 49 . Government employees or institutions employees were less likely to have depressive symptoms, which was less documented in the literature. It is likely that these populations were more likely to have access to a transparent announcement of epidemic information, so one possible explanation is that they do not have to suffer a feeling of uncertainty, which is a known risk factor for depression during a infectious epidemic 51 . Moreover, compared with HCWs who always suffer depression during the infectious epidemic, including COVID-19 outbreak 15, 19, 26, 51 , most of government employees or institutions employees stayed away from confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients, and therefore have lower risk of depressive symptoms than HCWs.