Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Emergency Dental Care Providers on the Frontlines in China

Tao, Jiang; Lin, Yueting; Jiang, Long; Zhou, Zhuojun; Zhao, Junjun; Qu, Donglin; Li, Wei; Zhu, Yaqin

COVID-19 is an infectious disease emerged at the end of 2019. On 30 January 2020, the WHO classified it as a pandemic. To examine the psychological effects on dental care providers in China in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak and factors closely associated with those effects, we conducted a cross-sectional study online with four widely used self-administered questionnaires: the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, the General Anxiety Disorder-7, the Perceived Stress Scale-10, and the Acute Stress Disorder Scale. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate the variables that potentially affected the mental health of emergency dental care providers. As a result, 969 out of 1035 questionnaires were included in the analysis, with 642 respondents reporting more than one symptom (66.3%). The symptom of perceived stress was reported by the largest proportion of the respondents (66.2%, n=641), while anxiety the least (7.1%, n=69). After adjustment for confounders, it is found that dental practitioners with pre-existing physical health conditions were at higher risk of depression (OR, 1.972; 95%CI, 1.128∼3.448; p=0.017), and perceived stress (OR, 2.397 95%CI, 1.283∼4.478; p=0.006). Additionally, feelings of fear, helplessness, or terror resulting from the possibility of being contracted were significantly associated with the prevalence of all the four psychological symptoms observed (p<0.05). In the present study, we revealed the psychological depression, stress, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suffered by dental care providers during COVID-19, which indicates the importance of psychological support at times of major epidemic outbreaks. Clinical trial registration number: ChiCTR2000031538 Registry: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry