Working conditions and anxiety levels of employees who have to work during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

BACKGROUND: This study aims to evaluate the anxiety levels of employees by determining the working conditions and protective practices in the workplace of individuals who had to work during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The cross-sectional study was carried out with 801 employees from different sectors who continued to work during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: The mean age of the employees was 33.1±10.3 years, and 63.4%were male while 46.1%were workers. The GAD-7 anxiety level mean score of the participants was determined as 6.6±5.1. Per this, 25.2%of the participants showed a high tendency to anxiety and 38.5%showed a moderate tendency. A statistically significant difference was found between anxiety level and gender, sector and profession. Besides, there was a statistically significant difference between the perception of workplace risk, the way of transportation to the workplace, the social distance in the workplace, measures taken for COVID-19 in the workplace, and anxiety levels (p < 0.05). In the multiple regression analysis, age, gender, work sector, COVID-19 anxiety levels, infection status, knowledge level and life satisfaction levels were determined as effective predictors on common anxiety disorder and explained 23.2%of the developed model variance (R2 = 0.232, p≤0.001). CONCLUSION: During the pandemic, it was determined that the anxiety susceptibility levels of the employees were very high and their protective practices against COVID-19 in the workplace were insufficient.