SynthesisHuman resources for health2020
The prevalence of stress, anxiety and depression within front-line healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients: a systematic review and meta-regression.
Synthesis in Human resources for health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 262 papers, 16 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
262 citing papers in PubMed, 16 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 584 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Emerging Roles of AI in Self-Directed Stress Management: Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Pooled it
- The prevalence of stress during the COVID-19 pandemic: an umbrella review.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Validated Tools for Assessing Anxiety and Depression in Nurses: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Pooled it
- Indicators associated with job morale of physicians in low- and middle-income countries during the COVID- 19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC health services research · 2025Pooled it
- An umbrella review of the prevalence of depression during the COVID-19 pandemic: Call to action for post-COVID-19 at the global level.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Risk factors of developing psychological problems among frontline healthcare professionals working in the COVID-19 pandemic era: a meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2023Pooled it
- Effects of Web-Based Mindfulness-Based Interventions on Anxiety, Depression, and Stress Among Frontline Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Pooled it
- The prevalence of probable mental health disorders among hospital healthcare workers during COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of affective disorders · 2023Pooled it
- Turning to Religion During COVID-19 (Part II): A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis and Meta-regression of Studies on the Relationship between Religious Coping and Mental Health throughout COVID-19.Journal of religion and health · 2023Pooled it
- Digital training for building resilience: Systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression.Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress · 2022Pooled it
- Online psychosocial interventions for improving mental health in people during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of affective disorders · 2022Pooled it
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of hospital staff: An umbrella review of 44 meta-analyses.International journal of nursing studies · 2022Pooled it
- Prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptoms among Chinese older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of geriatric psychiatry and neurology · 2022Pooled it
- The global prevalence of depression and anxiety among doctors during the covid-19 pandemic: Systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of affective disorders · 2022Pooled it
- COVID-19 pandemic effects on health worker's mental health: Systematic review and meta-analysis.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2022Pooled it
- User Engagement Clusters of an 8-Week Digital Mental Health Intervention Guided by a Relational Agent (Woebot): Exploratory Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Trial
- Smartphone-delivered multicomponent lifestyle medicine intervention for improving mental health in a nonclinical population: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in public health · 2023Trial
- When doctors falter: Resilience in modern obstetrics and gynecology, a narrative review.International journal of gynaecology and obstetrics: the official organ of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics · 2026Review
- Moral injury severity profiles and their pathways to negative emotions in medical staff: the differential mediating role of emotion regulation.BMC psychology · 2026Article
202 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundStress, anxiety, and depression are some of the most important research and practice challenges for psychologists, psychiatrists, and behavioral scientists. Due to the importance of issue and the lack of general statistics on these disorders among the Hospital staff treating the COVID-19 patients, this study aims to systematically review and determine the prevalence of stress, anxiety and depression within front-line healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients.
methodsIn this research work, the systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression approaches are used to approximate the prevalence of stress, anxiety and depression within front-line healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients. The keywords of prevalence, anxiety, stress, depression, psychopathy, mental illness, mental disorder, doctor, physician, nurse, hospital staff, 2019-nCoV, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and Coronaviruses were used for searching the SID, MagIran, IranMedex, IranDoc, ScienceDirect, Embase, Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science (ISI) and Google Scholar databases. The search process was conducted in December 2019 to June 2020. In order to amalgamate and analyze the reported results within the collected studies, the random effects model is used. The heterogeneity of the studies is assessed using the I
resultsOf the 29 studies with a total sample size of 22,380, 21 papers have reported the prevalence of depression, 23 have reported the prevalence of anxiety, and 9 studies have reported the prevalence of stress. The prevalence of depression is 24.3% (18% CI 18.2-31.6%), the prevalence of anxiety is 25.8% (95% CI 20.5-31.9%), and the prevalence of stress is 45% (95% CI 24.3-67.5%) among the hospitals' Hospital staff caring for the COVID-19 patients. According to the results of meta-regression analysis, with increasing the sample size, the prevalence of depression and anxiety decreased, and this was statistically significant (P < 0.05), however, the prevalence of stress increased with increasing the sample size, yet this was not statistically significant (P = 0.829).
conclusionThe results of this study clearly demonstrate that the prevalence of stress, anxiety and depression within front-line healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients is high. Therefore, the health policy-makers should take measures to control and prevent mental disorders in the Hospital staff.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.