To our knowledge, there are no enough studies examining the COVID-19 pandemic grief among the physicians, so the aim of the study is to use the Pandemic Grief Scale as an innovative tool to investigate the COVID-19 grief among the physicians and its impacts on psychological, social, and physical domains of their life during this pandemic era.
The results of this study were in parallel with the study conducted by Selman et al. [10] noted physicians were the front liners during COVID-19, had developed pandemic grief because of deaths of patients, colleagues, and their own loved members. Although many researches were conducted regarding COVID-19 grief of non-medical personnel, studying pandemic grief among physicians needed more attention.
The study has a result of mean score of PGS among studied physicians and was more than the cut-off score which is in accordance with result of the study by [8] who concluded that 56.6% of the sample scored above the cut score of ‡7 on the PGS for clinically dysfunctional pandemic grief.
The high mean score of PGS occurred among physicians before 6 months after grief which is in accordance with the study conducted by [11] who noted that most of the grief cases occurred during the 1st half of the year after loss of a loved one.
The study has a high mean score of PGS among physicians who were diagnosed positive with COVID-19; this result is in agreement with the result of a study conducted by ([12]) in which those who were diagnosed with COVID-19 have had higher PGS scores than those who were not diagnosed. This might be attributed by their relation to the deceased and their own physical and psychological manifestations related to COVID-19 infection.
The study has a positive association between mean score of PGS and functional impairment by mean score of Sheehan Disability Scale which in parallel with the study by [13] who found severe functional distress after COVID-19 grief either psychically, psychologically, or even socially.
The current study concluded that a remarkable percentage of physicians experienced pandemic grief beyond 1 month, which is in harmony with a study carried out by Robinson [14] who noted that physicians who witnessed facing the patients’death, helplessness, crying, impaired concentration, and anxiety manifestations, the pandemic grief often persisted more than 1 month and might need professional psychiatric management.
Also, the study found that the pandemic grief reaction was obvious when the deceased was one of the family members either immediate or extended; this is in accordance with the findings of the study by Wallace et al. [15] noting that the end-of-life events and the relationships of the health care workers to their loved ones were noticed as a crucial factor in the detection of the magnitude and consequences of pandemic grief.
This study revealed high mean scores of Patient Depression Health Questionnaire-9 which are in harmony with the study carried by Lu et al. [16] concluding that physicians who faced COVID-19 pandemic grief could have negative emotions like loss of loved one, guilty feeling, frustration, fear, and depressive manifestations.
Also, the study has a higher mean score of Sheehan Disability Scale which in accordance with the study conducted by Mayland et al. [17] highlighting that health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic were more liable to have deleterious effect on their domains of quality of life including physical, psychological, and social aspects as well as burnout syndrome.
Also, the study have results of high mean scores of Sheehan Disability Scale and Patient Depression Health Questionnaire-9 in contrary to the results of the study carried out by [18] who found that the total scores of depressive manifestations, pandemic COVID-19 grief, and functional disability were below clinically significant levels of impairment.
PGS in this study was more evident if the loss was one of the family member either immediate or extended; this finding is in line with the study done by [19] and another study conducted by [20], both concluding that people who were woman, younger age, recently bereaved, bereaved by the loss of a partner or child, and bereaved due to an unnatural loss had higher symptom profile in comparison to the other classes.
In conclusion, pandemic grief was commonly observed among the studied physicians’ group; also, the depressive manifestations and impacts on different aspects of physicians’ life were highly reported, which were positively associated to pandemic grief.