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Immune Cells and Hematology Minimally Affected in Health Care Workers Working with COVID-19 Patients

Sawsan Hassan Mahassni, Mashael Ali Babtain

Abstract


Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) is a novel coronavirus that was first discovered in Wuhan, China in 2019. Its rapid spread around the world led to fear and stress among people, especially health care workers (HCWs). HCWs may experience both physical and psychological stress due to their high risk of acquiring diseases from patients. This study aimed, for the first time in Saudi Arabia, to determine the effects of stress in HCWs in contact with COVID-19 patients (COVID-19 group) compared to HCWs not working with COVID-19 patients (non-COVID-19 group) on the immune system and hematology by measuring cortisol levels, differential blood counts, and ratios of white blood cells. Blood samples were collected (during March and April 2022) from 25 female COVID-19 HCWs and 30 female non-COVID-19 HCWs (age range of 24–51 years) randomly chosen from a tertiary hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Subjects signed a consent form and filled a health and lifestyle questionnaire. There were no significant differences between the two groups for all the parameters except for significantly higher mean monocyte count and monocyte/lymphocyte ratio for the COVID-19 group compared to the control. The lifestyle questionnaire showed that the COVID-19 group had more sleep disorders than non-COVID-19 HCWs. Therefore, it may be concluded that HCWs in contact with COVID-19 patients did show the effects of stress, although the effects were minimal.Therefore, whether the HCWs worked with COVID-19 patients or not did not lead to major differences in the cortisol levels and the determined immune and hematological parameters. 

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.37628/ijin.v8i2.2283

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