Behind COVID-19 pandemic backstage: anxiety and healthcare workers

Background. COVID-19 disease causes serious anxiety in healthcare workers. Objective. This study was carried out to determine the relationship between the anxiety level of epidemic diseases and occupational satisfaction. Method. The "Disease Anxiety Scale," which consists of four subgroups and a total of 18 questions, and the "Vocational Satisfaction Scale," which consists of two subgroups and 20 questions, were utilized to investigate the relationship between epidemic disease anxiety and occupational satisfaction. The statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS 26.0 program. Results. A total of 395 nurses were included in the study. The mean age of the participants was 33, and 63% were women. About 35.4% of the participants had deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic in their family or close environment. It was determined that 83% of the nurses have a pandemic disease anxiety. Occupational satisfaction and epidemic anxiety level (p = 0.005, r = 0.560), pandemic (p = 0.01, r = 0.525), economic (p = 0.001, r = -0.473), quarantine (p = 0.003, r = -0.503), and social life (p = 0.003, r = -0.507) were found to be negatively correlated. There was no significant difference between job satisfaction (t = 0.286, p = 0.08) and epidemic anxiety (t = 1.312, p = 0.06) in terms of gender. Conclusion. Most health-care professionals experi-ence serious anxiety, especially during the pandemic period.