Immediate impact of COVID-19 on mental health and its associated factors among healthcare workers: A global perspective across 31 countries

The emerging infectious disease, novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak began in December 2019 and spread worldwide [1]. A total of 213 countries, areas, or territories were affected in April 2020 [2]. Coronaviruses are known to cause respiratory tract infection among humans, similar to the previous outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) [3] and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) [4]. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was unknown to be an infectious agent for humans before the outbreak in December 2019. The patients may mainly be present with fever, dry cough, and respiratory problems, while 80% of the infected cases are mild or asymptomatic [5].