ORIGINAL ARTICLE   Free access

Minerva Psychiatry 2021 September;62(3):186-93

DOI: 10.23736/S2724-6612.21.02183-7

Copyright © 2021 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Evaluation of patient relatives applying to the emergency department in terms of intolerance to uncertainty and adult separation anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic process

Senol ARSLAN ✉, Orhan DELICE, Gokhan OZPOLAT, Mevlana OMEROGLU

Department of Emergency Medicine, Erzurum Regional Training and Research Hospital, Erzurum, Turkey

BACKGROUND: Intolerance to uncertainty is defined as a tendency to perceive uncertain events and situations as causes of danger, and to respond emotionally and behaviorally negatively. Separation anxiety disorder is defined as excessive anxiety, fear or avoidance behavior that occurs when separating from the attached figure. In this study, we aimed to measure the separation anxiety and intolerance of uncertainty of the patients’ relatives when they brought their relatives to the emergency service.
METHODS: This study was conducted as a prospective cross-sectional descriptive study. Relatives of patients who presented to the emergency department with COVID-19 between December 2020 and January 2021 were included in the study. Questionnaires containing demographic information and measurement tools were filled in for each participant.
RESULTS: Eighty-one of the 154 participants (52.6%) got 25 point or above from ASA. The averages of the scores the participants got from the scales; It was 36.5 for the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (forward anxiety: 22.14, preventive anxiety: 14.35) and 27.85 for ASA.A small positive correlation (r=0.187) was determined between adult separation anxiety (M=27.85, SD=13.84) and ıntolerance to uncertainty (M=36.5, SD=10.36). In the analysis, there was a significant relationship between education level, whether sufficient information was provided or not, and intolerance to uncertainty.
CONCLUSIONS: Emergency departments are areas where uncertainty and separation anxiety are likely to be experienced by patient relatives. Therefore, we would like to emphasize that it is important that the psychological conditions of the patients’ relatives should not be forgotten or ignored by healthcare professionals.

KEY WORDS: COVID-19; Anxiety, separation; Emergency service, hospital