Table 6.
Severity of depressive (PHQ-2) and generalized anxiety symptoms (GAD-2) for physicians, nurses and MTA, the differences between the three investigated occupational groups and in comparison with general population and reference groups before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
| Depressive symptoms | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M (SD) | Pairwise comparisons p# (effect size Cohen's d) |
Comparison with German normal population before the pandemic (N = 5036)a | Comparison with German general population in the early period of the pandemic (N = 6509)b | Comparison with physicians after the outbreak of the pandemic (N = 492)c | Comparison with nurses after the outbreak of the pandemic (N = 1511)c | |
| Physicians (A) | 1.48 (1.35) | A vs. B: 0.001 (0.157) | <0.001 (0.438) | <0.001 (0.382) | <0.001 (0.829) | – |
| Nurses (B) | 1.70 (1.44) | B vs. C: 0.008 (0.115) | <0.001 (0.605) | <0.001 (0.249) | – | <0.001 (0.876) |
| MTA* (C) | 1.86 (1.45) | C vs. A: <0.001 (0.274) | <0.001 (0.735) | <0.001 (0.149) | – | – |
| Generalized anxiety symptoms | ||||||
| M (SD) | Pairwise comparisons p# (effect size Cohen's d) |
Comparison with German normal population before the pandemic | Comparison with German general population in the early period of the pandemic | Comparison with physicians after the outbreak of the pandemic | Comparison with physicians after the outbreak of the pandemic | |
| Physicians (A) | 1.45 (1.41) | A vs. B: 1.0 (0.023) | <0.001 (0.543) | <0.001 (0.338) | – | – |
| Nurses (B) | 1.48 (1.48) | B vs. C: 0.006 (0.119) | <0.001 (0.559) | <0.001 (0.318) | – | – |
| MTA* (C) | 1.66 (1.50) | C vs. A: 0.001 (0.144) | <0.001 (0.703) | <0.001 (0.215) | – | – |
*The group consisted of the following professional subgroups: Medical assistants, Medical-technical laboratory assistants, Medical-technical radiology assistants, Pharmaceutical-technical assistants.
#
p-values from Bonferroni adjusted post hoc analysis of the ANOVA.
a
Löwe et al. (2010).
b
Petzold et al. (2020).
c
Skoda et al. (2020).