Journal of Modern Medical

Introduction
In December 2019, several cases of a new pneumonic disease with unknown etiology having symptoms such as fever, shortness of breath, cough, and invasive lesions in lungs was emerged in Wuhan, China which was later named COVID-19. After the increase in cases and the global spread of this virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 as the sixth public health emergency worldwide. This disease quickly became a global pandemic and put a lot of pressure on the healthcare system of the countries and the nurses underwent severe mental and physical pressures. One of the most important concerns in this regard was the effect of COVID-19-related anxiety on the quality of life of nurses. With the improvement of medical sciences and the health of human societies over time, people’s attention has changed from longevity and treatment to subjective and objective issues about well-being and quality of life, and the measurement of the quality of life (QoL) have been widely used in health and medical sciences. For this reason, QoL has been one of the most important subjects of clinical research during the past two decades. This study aims to compare the QoL of nurses working in COVID-19 referral hospitals and other hospitals.
Methods 
This descriptive -comparative study was performed on 122 nurses working in one COVID-19 referral hospital and five other hospitals in Sabzevar, Iran in May 2020, who were selected using a convenience sampling method. Inclusion criteria were willingness to complete the questionnaire and not visiting a psychiatrist for having anxiety, stress and depression in the last six months. The 36-item short form survey (SF-36) was used to collect information online. This questionnaire has eight subscales classified into two general scales of physical health and mental health. The Persian version of this questionnaire was validated by Montazeri et al. in 2015 on healthy samples aged >15 years in Tehran city, and a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.77-0.90 was reported. The reliability of the questionnaire in the present study using Cronbach’s alpha was 0.944. After obtaining ethical approval from Sabzevar University of Medical Sciences and obtaining informed consent from the participants, the online version of the questionnaire was prepared and its link was sent to the participants on social networks (Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram) or by SMS to complete. Mean and standard deviation were used to describe quantitative variables, and frequency and percentage were used for describing qualitative variables. The significance level was set at 0.5.
Results
The mean±SD age of participants in the COVID-19 referral hospital was 32.38±7.15 years and in other hospitals it was 35.08±6.54 years. Most of nurses (58%) had a moderate quality of life. There was no statistically significant difference between the quality of life of the two groups (Table 1).


Discussion 
Due to the prevalence of COVID-19 and its negative effects on the quality of life of nurses, it is recommended to take the necessary measures such as social participation, planning for greater welfare of nurses, and adjusting the working hours in order to improve the quality of life of nurses during the pandemic.
In this study, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Iran, the information was collected online using social networks. Other limitation was the use of a self-report questionnaire to collect information, in which the responses may be biased depending on the mental conditions of the participants. In addition, the demographic differences of the participants may affect their quality of life scores. Therefore, it is recommended to use other methods such as interviews for collecting data in future studies. Considering the spread of covid-19 disease and its inevitable effects on the quality of life of nurses, the use of measures for improving the working environment of nurses such as social particaption, planning for the greater welfare of nurses, and adjusting the amount and hours of work, is necessary to improve the quality of life of nurses. Proper communication with nurses and their support, development of effective incentive plans, and teaching coping strategies are among other methods that hospital managers can use during the pandemic for the nurses. 

Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
This study obtained an ethical approval from Sabzevar University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.MEDSAB.REC.1399.039)

Funding
This article is financially supported by the University Research and Technology Vice-Chancellor Sabzevar medical examination has been done

Authors' contributions
Conceptualization, supervision, writing, review and editing: Arezoo Davarinia Motlagh Quchan and Zohreh Mohamadzadeh Tabrizi; Methodology and review: Narjes Heshmatifar, Fatemeh Barzoee, Ali Tajabadi; Data collection: Arezoo Davarinia Motlagh Quchan, Zohreh Mohamadzadeh Tabrizi, Fatemeh Barzoee, Narjes Heshmatifar, Ali Tajabadi; Analysis Data: Sedighe Rastaghi. 

Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements
The researchers consider it necessary to thank all the nurses who participated in this study and also the Clinical Research Center of Vasi Sabzevar Hospital.


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