Our survey provides insights into the stress experienced by frontline HCWs in Vietnam, a country that has been quite successful in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated the working conditions of HCWs and factors associated with stress during a COVID-19 outbreak in Da Nang city. Using the stress component of the DASS-21 scale, we found that 44.6% of HCWs experienced different levels of stress. Another survey conducted among HCWs in Vietnam shortly after the first COVID-19 wave (end of April 2020) found that 34.3% HCWs experienced stress measured with the Revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-R) tool [11]. In a survey conducted from April-June 2020 in five countries in the Asia-Pacific region also using the IES-R tool, a stress prevalence of 3.3% was reported among HCWs in Vietnam but only 50 Vietnamese HCWs participated in this survey [12]. In a recent systematic review of 35 papers with data from 25,343 medical staff, a high level of perceived stress was reported by 56% of them (95% CI = 32%-79%) [13]. Using the same stress scoring system (DASS-21) as in our study, 23.8% of HCWs in Oman experienced stress [14], and 41.2% in Turkey [7]. Much higher prevalence of stress among HCWs were observed in China, Canada, and Pakistan: 71.5%, 85.6%, and 90.1% respectively [15-17]. However, the latter countries were confronted with a more important burden of COVID-19 compared to Vietnam.
Determinants of stress among HCWs in our study can be summarized into two main factors: the working conditions of HCWs, and their social support.
To ensure patient care and epidemic control in Da Nang, the medical staff had to face a huge workload often with limited resources. In addition to providing routine health services, HCWs had to undertake additional tasks ranging from contact tracing, monitoring, testing, and treating COVID-19 patients. Our findings indicated that pharmacists, and public health officers experienced less stress, most likely because they were less likely to have direct contact with patients and they were not quarantined during the outbreak. In addition, we found that the number of working hours per day and the number of working days per week both exceeded the prescribed maximal working duration for employees in Vietnam (48 hours/week) (Table 3). These results were consistent with other studies worldwide showing the overwhelming workload among HCWs during the pandemic [18, 19]. This increase in daily working hours and number of working days per week increased the risk of stress among HCWs [7, 20].
In our study, better knowledge about COVID-19 prevention and treatment was associated with less stress. Other studies reported that occupational protection practices and training people to increase their COVID-19 occupational protection knowledge reduced stress and prevented psychological problems [21, 22].
Similar to other studies, confidence in the available PPE and protective measures reduced the likelihood of stress [6, 18]. Indeed, being equipped with quality PPE will help HCWs to feel protected from contracting the virus, and also limit their risk to infect family members when they eventually return home [23].
Our research showed that HCWs who worked in health facilities treating COVID-19 patients had a higher risk of stress than HCW working in facilities not providing COVID-19 treatment (Table 3). Close and frequent contact with COVID-19 infected patients, working longer hours than as usual, and working in isolation units have been reported as factors causing increased stress among HCWs [16, 24, 25, 26]; all these conditions were fulfilled in COVID-19 treatment centers.
Thanks to the rapid implementation of drastic preventive measures and the efforts of the HCWs, the COVID-19 outbreak in Da Nang was rapidly controlled. More than a fifth of Da Nang city residents (208,028) were COVID-19 tested; 454 people were quarantined in health care facilities; 15,120 in centralized quarantine facilities; and 15,079 self/home-quarantined. By 4th September 2020, all lockdown measures were lifted and on 23rd September the last COVID-19 patient in Da Nang was discharged from the hospital. However, in May 2021, a new COVID-19 outbreak appeared in Vietnam, mainly in the city of Hanoi but also with community transmission in other cities including Da Nang. Lockdown measures were reinstituted. As of May 13th, only nearly 0.98% of the population in Vietnam had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Therefore, to control this new wave as well as future COVID-19 outbreaks, scaling up the COVID-19 vaccination campaign will be needed.
We acknowledge that our study had several limitations. As data was collected via an online survey, we do not know whether the HCW who participated in the survey were representative of all HCWs in Da Nang. Moreover, we cannot verify the validity of the answers to the survey questions; lastly, recall bias may have affected the quality of data provided by some HCWs.