Perceived Stress and Its Associated Factors towards Covid-19 Outbreaks Among Health Professionals of Asella Referral and Teaching Hospital, Southeast Ethiopia

Background: Frontline health workers are encountering an increasing workload and risk of infection while saving lives and it was reported that infected health workers accounted for 29% of all hospitalized COVID-19 patients during early pandemic. Thus they are under psychological distress because of risk of contracting COVID-19. Objectives: To assess the perceiving stress and its associated factors towards COVID-19 outbreaks among health professionals of Asella referral and teaching hospital, Arsi zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia, June 2020. Methods: An institutional based cross sectional study design was conducted from June 1 - 20, 2020. Simple random sampling technique and proportional allocation was used. Data was collected by trained BSc nurses in face to face by using pretested and structured questionnaire and entered into Epi-info and exported to SPSS for analysis and presented by descriptive statistics. Bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression was used. Result: The prevalence of perceived stress was 60.8%. The married were more stressed than divorced individuals, (AOR:1.213, 95 CI: (1.199, 3.571). Protestant (AOR: 2.552, 95% CI: (1.098, 10.846) stressed more than Waaqeffata religion followers. Amhara (AOR: 1.757, 95% CI: (1.337, 9.158) more likely stressed than Siltey ethnicity. Conclusion: This study revealed health professionals found to have high perceived stress. Religion, marital status and ethnicity were found to have a statistically significant association with perceived stress. Early screening and intervention of psychological stress of health professionals were highly recommended.