Introduction
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported in Wuhan, China in December, 2019(Li et al., 2020). After a latent period of 1-14 days (mostly 3-7 days), most patients infected with COVID-19 had clinical manifestations of fever, dry cough, and fatigue (Lu et al., 2020). Due to the person-to-person transmission via respiratory droplets when patients coughed or sneezed and close contact (Khan et al., 2020), the COVID-19 outbreak rapidly across China (Lijun et al., 2020). As to April 4, 2020, source told by the National Health Commission of China, the cumulative number of confirmed patients was up to 82,798 (50,333 in Wuhan), including 4,632 deaths (3,869 in Wuhan) (National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 2020). Meanwhile, the virus erupted in other countries which causing outbreak globally. The World Health Organization released the latest situation report 1,051,635 confirmed cases and 56,985 deaths on April 22, 2020 (World Health Organization, 2020).
Sustained growth of infections and death caused social fear and panic (Bao et al., 2020). During the treatment, isolation made patients gradually alienate to each other. On the other hand, uncertainty of disease prognosis and the threat of death, psychological health problems like depression or anxiety were more likely to occur and worsen (Xiao, 2020). A study found that COVID-19 confirmed patients suffered severe mental distress even after rehabilitation and discharge (Bo et al., 2020). These mental health problems may lead to some bad results, such as reducing the quality of life and affecting work performance (Liu et al., 2020). Previous studies showed that during the period of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, proportion of SARS survivors in mental distress status was 9.8% in the beginning, what was worse, it has increased to 25.6% after 30 months (Mak et al., 2009). This reminded us paying attention to mental health of COVID-19 survivors, yet, recent studies mainly focused on medical treatment and virus prevention.
Furthermore, healthcare workers rushing to rescue Wuhan also faced great pressure, including high risk of infection, inadequate of personal protection equipment, no specific medication, heavy workload, isolation, negative emotions of patients, lack of contact with family members, and fatigue (Chen et al., 2020). These acute conditions may lead to severe psychological health status such as stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and fear. These mental health problems will not only affect the attention, understanding and decision-making ability of healthcare workers, may hamper them from fighting against COVID-19, but also have a lasting influence on their overall health (Greenberg et al., 2020). Therefore, protecting the mental health of frontline healthcare workers was of great significance to control the epidemic situation and their own long-term health.
In view of the severe mental health problems, the National Health Commission of China published guidelines for emergency psychological intervention for COVID-19 survivors and healthcare workers (National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 2020). Specific methods included establishment of psychological intervention working groups, psychological assistance hotlines, online mental health services, and so on (Chen et al., 2020; Lijun et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2020). However, due to the unsatisfactory overall planning, lack of communications among medical services and mental health institutions, shortage of professional and experienced psychologists and psychiatrists (Duan & Zhu, 2020), survivors and healthcare workers didn’t acquire enough psychological support.
To solve the psychological health problems, we need to make clear of the mental health status of COVID-19 survivors and healthcare workers, and the impacting factors. The Symptom Check List 90 - Revised (SCL90-R) questionnaire was a multidimensional self-reported symptom scale which was used to estimate participants’ psychological status (Dudley et al., 2020). Indeed, it was widely used in clinical research of medicine since its naissance (Citkowska-Kisielewska et al., 2020). Therefore, we quoted SCL90-R questionnaire to measure mental health status of survivors and healthcare workers, which could provide valuable evidence for psychological intervention among COVID-19 survivors and healthcare workers.