Anxiety and fearfulness in patients under COVID-19 pandemic conditions – Monitoring of ENT outpatients

Introduction A rather high proportion of patients with mental comorbidity can be expected for the entire spectrum of ENT patients. The recommendation to document mental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was given by different groups of authors in the international literature of the past 36 months.

Material and methods Using the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), we recorded the prevalence of anxiety and fearfulness in equally sized groups of 100 consecutive randomly interviewed patients each at an ENT practice at four time points between April 2020 and July 2022. The results were compared with each other and with the available pre-pandemic data and statistically analysed.

Results From the surveys, there was a significant increase in the average age of our patients with onset in spring 2020. Compared to the pre-pandemic survey, more women than men visited the ENT office. The proportion of anxiety disorders that are presumably clinically relevant according to the BAI, as well as the level of anxiety, decreased significantly among the outpatients in comparison to the pre-pandemic survey. Women showed a statistically significantly higher level of anxiety and fearfulness than men. In March 2021, the evaluations showed a reversal with a sharp increase in the severity of anxiety and fearfulness, including presumably clinically relevant disorders. In summer 2022, we found some alignment with the pre-pandemic situation. However, there was a marked increase in presumably severe disorders, especially in combination with severe and moderate depressive episodes.

Discussion The "microcosm" medical office mirrors the situation in times of social crisis, as they have also been published in large data surveys for the mental health of the population as a whole.

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Artikel online veröffentlicht:
19. April 2024