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Demographic and professional risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 infections among physicians in low- and middle-income settings: Findings from a representative survey in two Brazilian states

Health workers (HWs) are a key resource for health systems worldwide, and have been affected heavily by the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence is consolidating on incidence and drivers of infections, predominantly in high-income settings. It is however unclear what the risk factors may be for specific heal...

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Autores principales: Russo, Giuliano, Cassenote, Alex, De Oliveira, Bruno Luciano Carneiro Alves, Scheffer, Mário
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10021204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36962544
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000656
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author Russo, Giuliano
Cassenote, Alex
De Oliveira, Bruno Luciano Carneiro Alves
Scheffer, Mário
author_facet Russo, Giuliano
Cassenote, Alex
De Oliveira, Bruno Luciano Carneiro Alves
Scheffer, Mário
author_sort Russo, Giuliano
collection PubMed
description Health workers (HWs) are a key resource for health systems worldwide, and have been affected heavily by the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence is consolidating on incidence and drivers of infections, predominantly in high-income settings. It is however unclear what the risk factors may be for specific health professions, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We conducted a cross-sectional survey in a representative sample of 1,183 medical doctors registered with Brazil’s Federal Council of Medicine in one developed (São Paulo) and one disadvantaged state (Maranhão). Between February-June 2021, we administered a telephone questionnaire to collect data on physicians’ demographics, deployment to services, vaccination status, and self-reported COVID-19 infections. We performed descriptive, univariate, and multilevel clustered analysis to explore the association between physicians’ infection rates, and their sociodemographic and employment characteristics. A generalized linear mixed model with a binomial distribution was used to estimate the adjusted odds ratio. We found that 35.8% of physicians in our sample declared having been infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus during the first year of the pandemic. The infection rate in Maranhão (49.2%) [95% CI 45.0–53.4] was almost twice that in São Paulo (24.1%) [95% CI 20.8–27.5]. Being a physician in Maranhão [95% CI 2.08–3.57], younger than 50 years [95% CI 1.41–2.89] and having worked in a COVID-19 ward [95% CI 1.28–2.27], were positively associated with the probability of infection. Conversely, working with diagnostic services [95% CI 0.53–0.96], in administrative functions [95% CI 0.42–0.80], or in teaching and research [95% CI 0.48–0.91] were negatively associated. Based on our data from Brazil, COVID-19 infections in LMICs may be more likely in health systems with lower physician-to-patient ratios, and younger doctors working in COVID-19 wards may be infected more frequently. Such findings may be used to identify policies to mitigate COVID-19 effects on HWs in LMICs.
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spelling pubmed-100212042023-03-17 Demographic and professional risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 infections among physicians in low- and middle-income settings: Findings from a representative survey in two Brazilian states Russo, Giuliano Cassenote, Alex De Oliveira, Bruno Luciano Carneiro Alves Scheffer, Mário PLOS Glob Public Health Research Article Health workers (HWs) are a key resource for health systems worldwide, and have been affected heavily by the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence is consolidating on incidence and drivers of infections, predominantly in high-income settings. It is however unclear what the risk factors may be for specific health professions, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We conducted a cross-sectional survey in a representative sample of 1,183 medical doctors registered with Brazil’s Federal Council of Medicine in one developed (São Paulo) and one disadvantaged state (Maranhão). Between February-June 2021, we administered a telephone questionnaire to collect data on physicians’ demographics, deployment to services, vaccination status, and self-reported COVID-19 infections. We performed descriptive, univariate, and multilevel clustered analysis to explore the association between physicians’ infection rates, and their sociodemographic and employment characteristics. A generalized linear mixed model with a binomial distribution was used to estimate the adjusted odds ratio. We found that 35.8% of physicians in our sample declared having been infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus during the first year of the pandemic. The infection rate in Maranhão (49.2%) [95% CI 45.0–53.4] was almost twice that in São Paulo (24.1%) [95% CI 20.8–27.5]. Being a physician in Maranhão [95% CI 2.08–3.57], younger than 50 years [95% CI 1.41–2.89] and having worked in a COVID-19 ward [95% CI 1.28–2.27], were positively associated with the probability of infection. Conversely, working with diagnostic services [95% CI 0.53–0.96], in administrative functions [95% CI 0.42–0.80], or in teaching and research [95% CI 0.48–0.91] were negatively associated. Based on our data from Brazil, COVID-19 infections in LMICs may be more likely in health systems with lower physician-to-patient ratios, and younger doctors working in COVID-19 wards may be infected more frequently. Such findings may be used to identify policies to mitigate COVID-19 effects on HWs in LMICs. Public Library of Science 2022-10-14 /pmc/articles/PMC10021204/ /pubmed/36962544 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000656 Text en © 2022 Russo et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Russo, Giuliano
Cassenote, Alex
De Oliveira, Bruno Luciano Carneiro Alves
Scheffer, Mário
Demographic and professional risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 infections among physicians in low- and middle-income settings: Findings from a representative survey in two Brazilian states
title Demographic and professional risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 infections among physicians in low- and middle-income settings: Findings from a representative survey in two Brazilian states
title_full Demographic and professional risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 infections among physicians in low- and middle-income settings: Findings from a representative survey in two Brazilian states
title_fullStr Demographic and professional risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 infections among physicians in low- and middle-income settings: Findings from a representative survey in two Brazilian states
title_full_unstemmed Demographic and professional risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 infections among physicians in low- and middle-income settings: Findings from a representative survey in two Brazilian states
title_short Demographic and professional risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 infections among physicians in low- and middle-income settings: Findings from a representative survey in two Brazilian states
title_sort demographic and professional risk factors of sars-cov-2 infections among physicians in low- and middle-income settings: findings from a representative survey in two brazilian states
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10021204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36962544
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000656
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