Health Anxiety, Stress and Coping Strategies Among Health Professionals During Covid-19 Pandemic in Cape Coast Metropolis

Abstract

The insurgence of Coronavirus disease popularly referred to as COVID-19 has tremendously affected healthcare professionals globally. The aim of this study was to investigate experiences of Health Anxiety, Stress and Coping during the Covid-19 pandemic among healthcare professionals in selected hospitals in the Cape Coast Metropolis. This study adopted the Descriptive survey design. The Multistage sampling technique was used to select 322 health professionals. The health professionals included Medical Officers, Physician Assistants and Nurses. Data were gathered using the Health Anxiety Inventory (HAI-SF), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and the Brief-COPE Inventory. Analyses were conducted using mean and standard deviation, ANOVA, Pearson Correlation Coefficient, Multiple Linear Regression Analysis, as well as Independent Sample t test. The findings showed that healthcare professionals in the Cape Coast Metropolis experienced low levels of health anxiety and stress during the current COVID-19 pandemic. There were no significant differences in the experiences of health anxiety and stress with regards to the categories of health professionals. However, male healthcare professionals were discovered to have experienced a significantly higher health anxiety than females. Additionally, it was found that coping strategies predicted or accounted for variances in experiences of health anxiety and stress among health professionals. But there were no significant gender differences in terms of stress. Considering the findings, it was recommended that medical personnel should be consistently examined for evaluating indicators of anxiety and stress and also trained to adopt appropriate coping strategies to mitigate the effect in this pandemic