Mental Health and Resilience of Hotel Employees During Covid-19 Outbreak: The Case of Ghanaian Hotels used as Quarantine Facilities

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic attracted some scholarly attention especially pertaining to its impact on employees’ mental health in developed nations. The study sought to assess the mental health and resilience of employees at hotels used as quarantine facilities during COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana. Two hundred and fifty (250) hotel employees at work when their workplaces served as quarantine centres in Accra were conveniently sampled. Data analysis was done with descriptive statistics, Crosstabs and Correlation. The results indicated a relative adherence to COVID- 19 safety protocols by hotels and employees possibly because of the preventive training sessions so most employees were not quarantined despite the seeming inadequate protocol materials and lack of motivational packages. The degree of the severity levels of COVID-19 induced mental health was high with a recorded high prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress. Employees educational levels coupled with their monthly income had significant relationship with COVID-19 induced stress. Relatively, there was low levels of resilience during the pandemic which reflected in a negative but significant relationship with the components of mental health. Ultimately, there was positive and significant relationship between the three mental health components. The study recommended that government must resource and empower more research to provide more diversified but still relevant information on employees mental health and outcomes of such researches could help formulate and design mental health policies and programmes, psychology/guidance and counselling units must be incorporated into hotels to monitor and take care of employees psychological needs to prepare them for eventualities and ultimately employees must utilise all opportunities that their workplaces and Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) provide them in terms of mental health education.