Relevant Factors and Intervention Measures of Psychological Stress-Induced Hyperthermia among Medical Staff in Temporary COVID-19 Negative Pressure Wards

Background: medical staff working in covid-19 wards must be isolated and observed for 14 days upon the occurrence of psychological stress-induced hyperthermia (psh). such measures could result in great psycho-logical pressure and incur considerable losses in anti-disease resources. methods: in this study, the psychological conditions of medical staff were assessed over a period of 7 days in covid-19 isolation wards of the people’s hospital of guangxi zhuang autonomous region, china and 7 days after leaving the wards by using the pittsburgh sleep quality index (psqi), generalized anxiety disorder scale (gad-7), patient health questionnaire-9 (phq-9), impact of event scale-revised (ies-r), and post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) checklist-civilian version (pcl-c). the relevant factors of psh were analyzed by t- and rank sum tests. results: a total of 10 females with an average body temperature of 37.36 ± 0.07 ℃ were included in the psh group. another 103 females and 53 males with an average body temperature of 36.66 ± 0.21 ℃ were included in the control group. the psqi, gad-7, phq-9, ies-r, and pcl-c scores of the psh group were higher than those of the control group. binary regression analysis indicated that the odds ratios of the psqi and gad-7 scores were 12.98 and 3.81, respectively (p < 0.05). after positive intervention, the body temperature and psychological scale scores of both groups returned to normal ranges. conclusion: working in covid-19 wards could cause susceptible medical staff to suffer from psh. female sex, somnipathy, and gad are independent risk factors of psh.