Factors associated to mental health and stress among frontline workers at Suvarnabhumi Airport during COVID-19 pandemic, Thailand : a cross-sectional study

Abstract

During COVID-19 pandemic,the frontline airport workers are the first group of people who have to screening all passengers from other countries to control and mitigate the imported case at the point of entry. The effects of COVID-19 are deeply down to individual health, especially the frontline airport workers who perform screening duties at the airport. The anxiousness and stress can occur from scarcity of equipment and afraid to be infected and can affects mental health and stress. This study is aimed to investigate the association between socio-demographic, job characteristics, and personal preventive measure factors to the mental health and stress among frontline airport workers at Suvarnabhumi airport during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey-based cross-sectional study was conducted. The participants are healthy males and females aged 20-60 years old and working in Suvarnabhumi airport for 6 months at least. The participants took self-administered questionnaires containing 3 parts as general characteristics, mental health, and stress. A total of 361 respondents were included in analysis, 42.1% was male and 57.9% was female. For the job description, 43.5% was Airport of Thailand staffs (AOT), 11.9% was Thai Customs Department, 14.7%% was Health Control and Quarantine Office, 25.2% was Immigration Police, 4.7% was others. To compare independent data with dependent data to find the association by Chi square test. The result shown that alcohol drinking(p <0.05), the continuous working(p<0.01), the supporting system(p<0.05), physical health awareness(p<0.001), contacted infected passengers(p<0.001), quarantine (p<0.01) influence to mental health. And the age(p<0.01), education(p<0.05), marital status (p 0.01),the changing workloads (p 0.01), the contact distance(p<0.05), the contact duration (p<0.05), continuous working (p<0.05),hygiene behaviors such as washing hand (p<0.05), take a shower when arrived home (p<0.05), physical health awareness(p<0.001), and contacted infected passengers(p<0.05) influence to stress.