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. 2020 Oct 29;19(2):1431-1438.
doi: 10.1007/s40200-020-00667-1. eCollection 2020 Dec.

Prevalence and severity of depression, anxiety, stress and perceived stress in hospitalized patients with COVID-19

Atefeh Zandifar  1   2 , Rahim Badrfam  3 , Shahrooz Yazdani  1 , Seyed Masoud Arzaghi  4 , Fatemeh Rahimi  1 , Somayeh Ghasemi  5 , Somayeh Khamisabadi  5 , Nami Mohammadian Khonsari  6 , Mostafa Qorbani  7   8
Affiliations
Free PMC article

Prevalence and severity of depression, anxiety, stress and perceived stress in hospitalized patients with COVID-19

Atefeh Zandifar et al. J Diabetes Metab Disord. .
Free PMC article

Abstract

Purpose: COVID-19, a disease that can be transmitted from person to person and with serious health problems, can be associated with mental health disorders. In this study, we evaluated the prevalence and severity of depression, anxiety, stress, and stress perception among a group of patients with COVID-19 who were hospitalized.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 106 inpatients with COVID-19 who had stable clinical conditions were evaluated psychologically by two questionnaires: Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4).

Results: More than one third of patients had underlying disease. Overall, 97.2% of patients with COVID-19 had some degree of depression. Severity of depression, according to the DASS questionnaire, was 85.8%. All patients (100%) had severe (0.9%) and very severe (99.1%) anxiety. Regarding to stress levels, 97.1% of patients had some degree of stress. In the severity of stress category, 84.9% of patients had severe and very severe stress. In terms of perceived stress, 73.6% of patients had high levels and 22.6% had moderate levels. A positive strong correlation was found between depression and perceived stress (Coefficient: 0.33, P-value: 0.001). Correlation between anxiety and perceived stress was statistically significant (Coefficient: 0.2, P-value: 0.04).

Conclusions: The existence of such a high prevalence and severity of psychiatric disorders among hospitalized patients with COVID-19 underscores the need for serious attention to the mental health status of these patients. It seems that health policymakers need to have coherent plans for screening cases and managing related situations.

Keywords: Anxiety; COVID-19; Depression; Management; Patients; Stress.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest/Competing interests There is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mean of depression, anxiety and stress score and total perceived stress scale score in hospitalized patients with COVID-19
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Prevalence of severe depression, anxiety and stress in hospitalized patients with COVID-19
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