ABSTRACT
Objective The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had devastating effects globally. These effects are likely to result in mental health problems at different levels. Although studies have reported the mental health burden of the pandemic on the general population and frontline health workers, the impact of the disease on the mental health of patients in COVID-19 treatment and isolation centres have been understudied in Africa. We estimated the prevalence of depression and anxiety and associated risk factors in hospitalized persons with COVID-19.
Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 489 patients with COVID-19 at the three government designated treatment and isolation centres in Edo State, Nigeria. The 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) tool were used to assess depression and anxiety respectively. Binary logistic regression was applied to determine risk factors of depression and anxiety.
Results Of the 489 participants, 49.1% and 38.0% had depressive and anxiety symptoms respectively. The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and combination of both were 16.2%, 12.9% and 9.0% respectively. Moderate-severe symptoms of COVID-19, ≥14 days in isolation, worrying about the outcome of infection and stigma increased the risk of having depression and anxiety. Additionally, being separated/divorced increased the risk of having depression and having comorbidity increased the risk of having anxiety.
Conclusion A substantial proportion of our participants experienced depression, anxiety and a combination of both especially in those who had the risk factors we identified. The findings underscore the need to address these risk factors early in the course of the disease and integrate mental health interventions into COVID-19 management guidelines.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funding Statement
This research is part of the PANDORA-ID-NET (EDCTP Reg/Grant RIA2016E-1609 funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP2) programme, which is supported under Horizon 2020, the European Union's Framework Programme for Research, and Innovation.
Author Declarations
I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.
Yes
The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:
The ethics committee of Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital gave ethical approval for this work- Protocol No: ISTH/HREC/20202004/065.I
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Yes
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Footnotes
↵8 Members of the PANDORA-ID-NET Consortium grant number RIA 2016E-1609 funded by EDCTP
Data Availability
All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors