Publication date: Jun 17, 2024

This study aimed to understand nurses’ perceptions of COVID-19-related policies and risks during the outbreak of COVID-19 in Hong Kong and to determine how their perceptions influenced their mental health status. A web-based online survey among Hong Kong nurses was conducted. The questionnaire included a self-designed 5-point Likert scale with 17 items to assess the nurses’ perceptions of COVID-19-related policies and risks, as well as the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) and the Generalised Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD) for measurement of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress, depression and anxiety, respectively. Of 592 nurses enrolled, 30. 6% had PTSD (DTS total score ≥40), and 80. 4%, 19. 9% and 16. 4% had moderate-to-high levels of stress (PSS-10 score ≥14), depression (PHQ-2 score ≥3) and anxiety (GAD score ≥3), respectively. The top three concerned aspects were ‘worried about themselves and friends to suffer this disease’ (84. 5%), ‘insufficient number of isolation wards’ (81. 8%) and ‘insufficient number of personal protective equipment’ (74. 3%). Logistic regression analyses showed that more negative perception on ‘personal protective equipment in the healthcare institutions’, ‘the confidence in HK’s control of COVID-19’, ‘worried about themselves and friends to suffer this disease’ and ‘self-perceived risk of infection’ indicated higher severity of the four mental health problems (all p 

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