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Preventing the next 'SARS' - European healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Hospitals are often the epicentres of newly circulating infections. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at high risk of acquiring infectious diseases and may be among the first to contract emerging infections. This study aims to explore European HCWs' perceptions and attitudes towards mon...

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Autores principales: Aghaizu, Adamma, Elam, Gillian, Ncube, Fortune, Thomson, Gail, Szilágyi, Emese, Eckmanns, Tim, Poulakou, Garyphallia, Catchpole, Mike
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160373/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21740552
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-541
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author Aghaizu, Adamma
Elam, Gillian
Ncube, Fortune
Thomson, Gail
Szilágyi, Emese
Eckmanns, Tim
Poulakou, Garyphallia
Catchpole, Mike
author_facet Aghaizu, Adamma
Elam, Gillian
Ncube, Fortune
Thomson, Gail
Szilágyi, Emese
Eckmanns, Tim
Poulakou, Garyphallia
Catchpole, Mike
author_sort Aghaizu, Adamma
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Hospitals are often the epicentres of newly circulating infections. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at high risk of acquiring infectious diseases and may be among the first to contract emerging infections. This study aims to explore European HCWs' perceptions and attitudes towards monitoring their absence and symptom reports for surveillance of newly circulating infections. METHODS: A qualitative study with thematic analysis was conducted using focus group methodology. Forty-nine hospital-based HCWs from 12 hospitals were recruited to six focus groups; two each in England and Hungary and one each in Germany and Greece. RESULTS: HCWs perceived risk factors for occupationally acquired infectious diseases to be 1.) exposure to patients with undiagnosed infections 2.) break-down in infection control procedures 3.) immuno-naïvety and 4.) symptomatic colleagues. They were concerned that a lack of monitoring and guidelines for infectious HCWs posed a risk to staff and patients and felt employers failed to take a positive interest in their health. Staffing demands and loss of income were noted as pressures to attend work when unwell. In the UK, Hungary and Greece participants felt monitoring staff absence and the routine disclosure of symptoms could be appropriate provided the effectiveness and efficiency of such a system were demonstrable. In Germany, legislation, privacy and confidentiality were identified as barriers. All HCWs highlighted the need for knowledge and structural improvements for timelier recognition of emerging infections. These included increased suspicion and awareness among staff and standardised, homogenous absence reporting systems. CONCLUSIONS: Monitoring absence and infectious disease symptom reports among HCWs may be a feasible means of surveillance for emerging infections in some settings. A pre-requisite will be tackling the drivers for symptomatic HCWs to attend work.
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spelling pubmed-31603732011-08-24 Preventing the next 'SARS' - European healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study Aghaizu, Adamma Elam, Gillian Ncube, Fortune Thomson, Gail Szilágyi, Emese Eckmanns, Tim Poulakou, Garyphallia Catchpole, Mike BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Hospitals are often the epicentres of newly circulating infections. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at high risk of acquiring infectious diseases and may be among the first to contract emerging infections. This study aims to explore European HCWs' perceptions and attitudes towards monitoring their absence and symptom reports for surveillance of newly circulating infections. METHODS: A qualitative study with thematic analysis was conducted using focus group methodology. Forty-nine hospital-based HCWs from 12 hospitals were recruited to six focus groups; two each in England and Hungary and one each in Germany and Greece. RESULTS: HCWs perceived risk factors for occupationally acquired infectious diseases to be 1.) exposure to patients with undiagnosed infections 2.) break-down in infection control procedures 3.) immuno-naïvety and 4.) symptomatic colleagues. They were concerned that a lack of monitoring and guidelines for infectious HCWs posed a risk to staff and patients and felt employers failed to take a positive interest in their health. Staffing demands and loss of income were noted as pressures to attend work when unwell. In the UK, Hungary and Greece participants felt monitoring staff absence and the routine disclosure of symptoms could be appropriate provided the effectiveness and efficiency of such a system were demonstrable. In Germany, legislation, privacy and confidentiality were identified as barriers. All HCWs highlighted the need for knowledge and structural improvements for timelier recognition of emerging infections. These included increased suspicion and awareness among staff and standardised, homogenous absence reporting systems. CONCLUSIONS: Monitoring absence and infectious disease symptom reports among HCWs may be a feasible means of surveillance for emerging infections in some settings. A pre-requisite will be tackling the drivers for symptomatic HCWs to attend work. BioMed Central 2011-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC3160373/ /pubmed/21740552 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-541 Text en Copyright ©2011 Aghaizu et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Aghaizu, Adamma
Elam, Gillian
Ncube, Fortune
Thomson, Gail
Szilágyi, Emese
Eckmanns, Tim
Poulakou, Garyphallia
Catchpole, Mike
Preventing the next 'SARS' - European healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study
title Preventing the next 'SARS' - European healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study
title_full Preventing the next 'SARS' - European healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study
title_fullStr Preventing the next 'SARS' - European healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Preventing the next 'SARS' - European healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study
title_short Preventing the next 'SARS' - European healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study
title_sort preventing the next 'sars' - european healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160373/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21740552
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-541
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