Coronavirus Anxiety in Teachers Working in Primary and Secondary Education

Fatih Özcan, Onur Bakıcı, Ömer Aydemir

Keywords: Coronavırus anxiety in teachers, health anxiety inventory (short version), EUROPEP

Background:
Anxiety is a response to vague and uncertain threats and dangers with physiological, psychological, and behavioral patterns. During the pandemic, COVID-19 disease health anxiety is expressed as excessive concern about one's health or perceiving the changes in the body as the harbinger of a severe illness.

Research questions:
In this study, we aimed to reach the participants' opinions about health anxiety levels, coronavirus anxiety levels, and their family physicians and determine the relationship between these variables.

Method:
The research is of cross-sectional-analytical type. The questionnaires were administered face to face. We used four instruments to collect data: sociodemographic information form, health anxiety inventory (short version), coronavirus anxiety scale, and EUROPEP family physician evaluation form. Descriptive statistics analysis was used. The level of significance in the study was accepted as p<0.05. The research universe consists of teachers (a total of 2000 teachers) working in primary and secondary education in the province of Uşak city. We calculated the sample size as 323 with a 95% confidence interval and a 5% margin of error.

Results:
54.2% of the participants were female, and 45.8% were male. The average age of the participants was 40.32. 15.17% of the 323 participants had a chronic disease. According to gender, teachers have a significant difference in their coronavirus anxiety scores (P=0.032). The mean score for coronavirus anxiety of female teachers is higher than that of male teachers. The coronavirus anxiety score of participants with any psychological disorder is much higher than those without any psychological disorder.

Conclusions:
Having health anxiety may be a predictor for having coronavirus anxiety. It can be conceivable that motivating the patient, eliminating his worries and fears, gaining the physician's trust in the patient, and contributing positively to the psychological aspect of the patient-physician relationship may reduce health anxiety.

Points for discussion:
If we want to carry out this study in a larger population and different centers, what suggestions do you have in terms of method?