Psychosocial risks to the infectious threat in nursing personnel in a health center in Ecuador 2020

Developing activities in a health institution, exposes nurses to multiple biological agents of potential infectious threat such as Hepatitis A, B, C, HIV / AIDS, Tuberculosis, Varicella, Tuberculosis, Rubella, Cytomegalovirus, COVID-19, among other communicable diseases, promoting a psychosocial risk to fear of being infected. To determine the psychosocial risks in the face of the infectious threat in nursing personnel of a hospital in Ecuador. It was an epidemiological-descriptive study of a cross-sectional cohort between September and December 2020, with a sample of 74 nurses. Data collection, a survey of 44 closed dichotomous questions was applied. The data were stored in Microsoft Excel and analyzed with Epidat. As a result, 68.92% were female, with ages between 31-35 (33.78%), 58.11% were married, 41.89% were single, and 60.81% had children. The characteristic psychological risks were 24.32% anxiety, 21.62% stress, 18.92% depression, 12.16% sleep disorders, 8.11% eating disorders and consumption of psychotropic drugs, 4.05% thoughts suicides and 2.70% consume alcohol, the most prominent of the social risks was family distancing with 37.84%. It is concluded that biological risk is, without a doubt, the most frequent among the occupational risks of health personnel, raising different levels of anxiety, which puts at stake even the quality of care that can be given to patients. © 2021 Instituto de Altos Estudios de Salud Publica. All rights reserved.