Factors associated with fear of the coronavirus in health professionals who work at the first level of care
Keywords:
fear, COVID-19, health personnel, anxiety and mental healthAbstract
Introduction: Fear is an emotional disorder that can also manifest itself in health professionals when faced with an unknown infectious disease. This emotion can trigger depressive symptoms, ranging from discouragement, fatigue, and lack of interest to a lack of concentration. Objectives: To determine the factors associated with fear of the coronavirus in health professionals who work at the first level of care during the year 2022. Materials and methods: This study is observational, cross-sectional, and analytical. The study population consisted of 200 health professionals who work at the first level of care. A simple random probabilistic sampling was carried out. To determine the prevalence of fear towards the coronavirus, the instrument “Scale of Fear of COVID-19” was applied. To identify the factors associated with fear, the instrument of epidemiological and occupational variables was used. The data was processed using the statistical package SPSSv28. Results: A prevalence of fear of coronavirus of 72% was found, related to epidemiological factors with being female (p-value 0,021) and labor factors such as time worked (p=0,015) and access to equipment of individual protection (p-value 0,003), all with a statistically significant value. Conclusion: The factors associated with fear of the coronavirus in health professionals showed a significant impact on the female sex, in the working period of 6 to 10 years and daily access to personal protective equipment.
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