The following is a summary of “Prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD) symptoms among health care workers in COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” published in the November 2023 issue of Psychiatry by SoleimanvandiAzar et al.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the mental health challenges faced by healthcare workers (HCWs), with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms emerging as a significant concern.
Researchers initiated a retrospective study to ascertain the global prevalence of OCD symptoms among HCWs, recognizing their detrimental impact on HCWs’ mental well-being, effectiveness, and patient health outcomes.
They conducted searches on PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, Emerald, and ERIC databases using relevant keywords until the conclusion of October 2021. Observational studies on OCD symptom prevalence among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic were screened and evaluated. The Newcastle-Ottawa scale (NOS) checklist was employed to assess the quality of studies. The prevalence rate with a 95% CI served as the effect measure.
The results showed the inclusion of 7864 individuals from 11 studies. The prevalence of OCD symptoms in these studies ranged from 0.07 to 0.47. Due to significant heterogeneity among the studies (I2 = 98.6%, P<0.01), the random effects model was utilized. Based on logit-transformed CI, the pooled prevalence was 0.29 (95% CI: 0.22–0.38).
Investigators concluded that a substantial 29% of HCWs exhibited OCD symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic, warranting the development and implementation of psychosocial interventions.
Source: bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-023-05353-z
