Background  Front-line medical staff are an important group in fighting against Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), and their mental health should not be ignored.

Objective  This study investigates the current situation and influencing factors of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among front-line anti-epidemic medical staff during COVID-19 epidemic.

Methods  Medical staff who had participated in fighting against the COVID-19 epidemic wereselected from three grade III Class A hospitals and four grade II Class A hospitals in a city of Hubei Province by convenient sampling method in May 2020. The survey was conducted online using the Post-traumatic Stress Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C) as the main survey tool to investigate current situation and characteristics of PTSD among these participants. A total of 1120 questionnaires were collected, of which 1071 were valid, and the effective rate was 95.6%.

Results  Of the 1071 participants, the average age was (32.59±5.21) years; the ratio of male to female was 1: 5.02; the ratio of doctor to nurse was 1:5.8; nearly 70% participants came from grade III Class A hospitals; married participants accounted for 75.4%; most of them held a bachelor degree or above (86.5%); members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) accounted for 22.9%; 50.9% had junior titles; the working years were mainly 5−10 years (42.8%); more than 80.0% participants volunteered to join the front-line fight; 95.1% participants received family support; 43.0% participated in rescue missions; 78.1% participants fought the epidemic in their own hospitals; more than 60% participants considered the workload was greater than before; 34.4% participants fought in the front-line for 2−4 weeks, and 23.5% participants did for more than 6 weeks. There were 111 cases of positive PTSD syndromes (PCL-C total score ≥38) with an overall positive rate of 10.4%, and the scores of reexperience 1.40 (1.00, 1.80) and hypervigilance 1.40 (1.00, 2.00) were higher than the score of avoidance 1.14 (1.00, 2.57). The results of univariate analysis revealed that PTSD occurred differently among participants grouped by age, political affiliation, working years, anti-epidemic activities location, accumulated working hours in fighting against COVID-19, having child parenting duty, voluntariness, family support, whether family members participated in front-line activities, and rescue mission assignment (P<0.05). The results of logistic regression analysis showed that the incidence rates of reporting PTSD syndromes in medical personnel aged 31−40 years (OR=0.346, 95%CI: 0.164−0.730) and aged 41 years and above (OR=0.513, 95%CI: 0.319-0.823) were lower than that in those aged 20−30 years; the incidence rates of reporting PTSD syndromes in medical staff who were CPC members (OR=0.499, 95%CI: 0.274−0.909), volunteered to participate (OR=0.584, 95%CI: 0.360−0.945), and received family support (OR=0.453, 95%CI: 0.222-0.921) were lower than those did not (P<0.05); the incidence rates of reporting PTSD syndromes among medical workers who had child parenting duty (OR=2.372, 95%CI: 1.392−4.042), whose family members participated in front-line activities (OR=1.709, 95%CI: 1.135−2.575), and who participated in rescue missions (OR=1.705, 95%CI: 1.133-2.565) were higher than those who did not (P<0.05).

Conclusion  The positive PTSD syndrome rate is 10.4% in the front-line anti-epidemic medical staff. Age, political affiliation, voluntariness, family support, having child parenting duty, with a family members participating in the fight, and rescue mission assignment are the influencing factors of PTSD.