Depression and quality of life among Afghan healthcare workers: A cross-sectional survey study

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Mohammadi, AQ, Neyazi, A, Rangelova, V, Padhi, BK, Odey, GO, Ogbodum, MU and Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, 2023. Depression and quality of life among Afghan healthcare workers: A cross-sectional survey study. BMC Psychology, 11: 29. ISSN 2050-7283

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-023-01059-9

Abstract

Background:
According to the World Health Organization, approximately 280 million individuals worldwide suffer from depression. One occupational group that is more prone to mental health issues is healthcare workers (HCWs). However, very little is known about the mental health of HCWs in Afghanistan. Therefore, the present study examined depression, quality of life (QOL), and related factors among Afghan HCWs.

Methods:
A cross-sectional survey was administered in June 2022 among healthcare workers (N = 299) in the Herat province of Afghanistan. The survey examined depression, its risk factors and predictors among HCWs.

Results:
Of the 299 participants, 73.6% of them reported depression symptoms. Low monthly income, working in a private hospital, and being a cigarette smoker were some of the main variables associated with depression symptoms among Afghan HCWs. Multiple regression analysis indicated that field of work (aOR = 3.774, p = 0.0048), monthly income (aOR = 0.746, p = 0.0088), job type (aOR = 8.970, p <0.0001), cigarette smoking (aOR = 2.955, p = 0.0069), a bad event happening during the past month (aOR = 2.433, p = 0.0157), physical domain of quality of life (aOR = 0.966, p = 0.0186), and psychological domain of quality of life (aOR = 0.950, p = 0.0005) were significantly associated with depression symptoms.

Conclusion:
The prevalence of depression symptoms is high among healthcare workers in the Herat province of Afghanistan. One of the variables found to have a major impact on the prevalence of depression was their monthly income. Considering its impact on quality of life and the overall quality of healthcare services, the government should implement regular screening for depression, psychological counselling services, and psychiatric treatment for vulnerable healthcare workers.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	BMC Psychology
Creators:	Mohammadi, A.Q., Neyazi, A., Rangelova, V., Padhi, B.K., Odey, G.O., Ogbodum, M.U. and Griffiths, M.D.
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date:	30 January 2023
Volume:	11
ISSN:	2050-7283
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1186/s40359-023-01059-9 DOI 1652711 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Lee Houghton
Date Added:	08 Feb 2023 12:02
Last Modified:	08 Feb 2023 12:02
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/48197