ArticleHuman resources for health2022
Assessing the mental effects of COVID-19-related work on depression among community health workers in Vietnam.
Article in Human resources for health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Organizational interventions to support and promote the mental health of healthcare workers during pandemics and epidemics: a systematic review.BMC health services research · 2025Pooled it
- Prevalence of depression, anxiety in China during the COVID-19 pandemic: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2023Pooled it
- Challenges and Mitigation Strategies in the Development and Feasibility Assessment of a Digital Mental Health Intervention for Depression (VMood): Mixed Methods Feasibility Study.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Burnout, motivation and job satisfaction among community health workers recruited for a depression training in Madhya Pradesh, India: a cross-sectional study.BMJ public health · 2024Article
- Sex Differences in Clustering Unhealthy Lifestyles Among Survivors of COVID-19: Latent Class Analysis.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2024Article
- Job Satisfaction within the Grassroots Healthcare System in Vietnam's Key Industrial Region-Binh Duong Province: Validating the Vietnamese Version of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire Scale.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Evaluation of the implementation of a community health worker-led COVID-19 contact tracing intervention in Chiapas, Mexico, from March 2020 to December 2021.BMC health services research · 2024Observational
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCommunity health workers (CHWs) involved in the COVID-19 response might be at increased risk of developing depression, though evidence is scarce. We investigated effects of COVID-19-related work on changes in depression levels among CHWs in Vietnam and identified sub-groups among CHWs who are at particular risk of developing severe depression.
methodsWe conducted a cross-sectional online survey among 979 CHWs who were involved in the COVID-19 response in Vietnam, in particular during the 2021 Tet holiday outbreak between January and March 2021. Respondents were asked to report depression symptoms at two-time points, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (average June to December 2019) and during the 2021 Tet holiday outbreak using the PHQ-9 mental health questionnaire. We estimated depression levels at both time points and developed univariate and multivariable logistic regression models to estimate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) to explore the association between deterioration to high depression levels and selected risk factors.
resultsMedian depression levels among CHWs in Vietnam doubled from 3 (IQR = 2-7) before COVID-19 to 6 (IQR = 3-9) on the PHQ-9 scale during the Tet holiday outbreak. The proportion with normal/minimal levels decreased from 77.1% (95% CI = 74.4-79.7) to 50.9% (95% CI = 47.7-54) (p-value < 0.001), while the proportion of CHWs with moderate, moderately severe, and severe depression levels increased 4.3, 4.5, and five-fold, respectively. Less sleep and poor sleep quality, working in unfavorable work environments, and being involved in contact tracing and the organization of quarantine for suspected cases were associated with an increased risk of deterioration to high depression levels.
conclusionsWe found a substantial increase in overall depression levels among CHWs in Vietnam due to their COVID-19 related work and a particularly worrisome rise in CHWs suffering from severe depression. CHWs are an indispensable yet often overlooked cadre of work in many low- and middle-income countries and shoulder a heavy psychological burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. Targeted psychological support for CHWs is needed to improve their mental health and to ensure the sustainability of community-based health interventions during COVID-19 and future epidemics.
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