Abstract
Backgrounds: COVID-19 is an acute infectious respiratory disease that could lead to organ damage. At the same time, the effect of isolation and social distance measures during the COVID-19 pandemic can result in mental health disorders. Objectives: To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health scores of patients in the Cardiovascular Center at Hanoi Medical University Hospital. Subjects and Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study evaluating psychology of cardiovascular patients by two questionnaires: Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) from May 2022 to July 2022 Results: 130 inpatients participated in the study. There were 15.4% positive for psychological distress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among them, 6.9% scored a moderate to severe level of distress. 19.2% of participants had a risk of depression, 32.3% of anxiety and 26.1% had a risk of stress. A strong correlation was found between mental health scores and gender, age, occupation, medical diagnosis, comorbidity, COVID-19 illness severity, and changes in routine. Conclusions: The study population was psychologically impacted and at risk of developing mental health problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cardiovascular patients should be screened and referred for further mental health consultation as the COVID-19 pandemic may negatively affect the progress of heart diseases.
