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Perception and attitude of healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19 pandemic and potential associated predictors

BACKGROUND: Healthcare workers (HCWs) face considerable mental and physical stress caring for patients with Covid-19. They are at higher risk of acquiring and transmitting this virus. This study aims to assess perception and attitude of HCWs in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19, and to identify p...

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Autores principales: Abolfotouh, Mostafa A., Almutairi, Adel F., BaniMustafa, Ala’a A., Hussein, Mohamed A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7523489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32993538
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-020-05443-3
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author Abolfotouh, Mostafa A.
Almutairi, Adel F.
BaniMustafa, Ala’a A.
Hussein, Mohamed A.
author_facet Abolfotouh, Mostafa A.
Almutairi, Adel F.
BaniMustafa, Ala’a A.
Hussein, Mohamed A.
author_sort Abolfotouh, Mostafa A.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Healthcare workers (HCWs) face considerable mental and physical stress caring for patients with Covid-19. They are at higher risk of acquiring and transmitting this virus. This study aims to assess perception and attitude of HCWs in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19, and to identify potential associated predictors. METHODS: In a cross-sectional study, HCWs at three tertiary hospitals in Saudi Arabia were surveyed via email with an anonymous link, by a concern scale about Covid-19 pandemic during 15–30 April, 2020. Concerns of disease severity, governmental efforts to contain it and disease outcomes were assessed using 32 concern statements in five distinct domains. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify predictors of high concern scores. RESULTS: A total of 844 HCW responded to the survey. Their average age was 40.4 ± 9.5 years, 40.3% were nurses, 58.2% had direct patient contact, and 77.3% were living with others. The majority of participants (72.1%) had overall concern scores of 55 or less out of a maximum score of 96 points, with an overall mean score of 48.5 ± 12.8 reflecting moderate level of concern. Three-fourth of respondents felt at risk of contracting Covid-19 infection at work, 69.1% felt threatened if a colleague contracted Covid-19, 69.9% felt obliged to care for patients infected with Covid-19 while 27.7% did not feel safe at work using the standard precautions available. Nearly all HCWs believed that the government should isolate patients with Covid-19 in specialized hospitals (92.9%), agreed with travel restriction to and/or from areas affected by Covid-19 (94.7%) and felt safe the government implemented curfew and movement restriction periods (93.6%). Predictors of high concern scores were; HCWs of Saudi nationality (p < 0.001), younger age (p = 0.003), undergraduate education (p = 0.044), living with others (p = 0.003) working in the western region (p = 0.003) and direct contact with patients (p = 0.018). CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the high concern among HCWs about Covid-19 and identifies the predictors of those with highest concern levels. To minimize the potential negative impact of those concerns on the performance of HCWs during pandemics, measures are necessary to enhance their protection and to minimize the psychological effect of the perceived risk of infection.
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spelling pubmed-75234892020-09-30 Perception and attitude of healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19 pandemic and potential associated predictors Abolfotouh, Mostafa A. Almutairi, Adel F. BaniMustafa, Ala’a A. Hussein, Mohamed A. BMC Infect Dis Research Article BACKGROUND: Healthcare workers (HCWs) face considerable mental and physical stress caring for patients with Covid-19. They are at higher risk of acquiring and transmitting this virus. This study aims to assess perception and attitude of HCWs in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19, and to identify potential associated predictors. METHODS: In a cross-sectional study, HCWs at three tertiary hospitals in Saudi Arabia were surveyed via email with an anonymous link, by a concern scale about Covid-19 pandemic during 15–30 April, 2020. Concerns of disease severity, governmental efforts to contain it and disease outcomes were assessed using 32 concern statements in five distinct domains. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify predictors of high concern scores. RESULTS: A total of 844 HCW responded to the survey. Their average age was 40.4 ± 9.5 years, 40.3% were nurses, 58.2% had direct patient contact, and 77.3% were living with others. The majority of participants (72.1%) had overall concern scores of 55 or less out of a maximum score of 96 points, with an overall mean score of 48.5 ± 12.8 reflecting moderate level of concern. Three-fourth of respondents felt at risk of contracting Covid-19 infection at work, 69.1% felt threatened if a colleague contracted Covid-19, 69.9% felt obliged to care for patients infected with Covid-19 while 27.7% did not feel safe at work using the standard precautions available. Nearly all HCWs believed that the government should isolate patients with Covid-19 in specialized hospitals (92.9%), agreed with travel restriction to and/or from areas affected by Covid-19 (94.7%) and felt safe the government implemented curfew and movement restriction periods (93.6%). Predictors of high concern scores were; HCWs of Saudi nationality (p < 0.001), younger age (p = 0.003), undergraduate education (p = 0.044), living with others (p = 0.003) working in the western region (p = 0.003) and direct contact with patients (p = 0.018). CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the high concern among HCWs about Covid-19 and identifies the predictors of those with highest concern levels. To minimize the potential negative impact of those concerns on the performance of HCWs during pandemics, measures are necessary to enhance their protection and to minimize the psychological effect of the perceived risk of infection. BioMed Central 2020-09-29 /pmc/articles/PMC7523489/ /pubmed/32993538 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-020-05443-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Abolfotouh, Mostafa A.
Almutairi, Adel F.
BaniMustafa, Ala’a A.
Hussein, Mohamed A.
Perception and attitude of healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19 pandemic and potential associated predictors
title Perception and attitude of healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19 pandemic and potential associated predictors
title_full Perception and attitude of healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19 pandemic and potential associated predictors
title_fullStr Perception and attitude of healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19 pandemic and potential associated predictors
title_full_unstemmed Perception and attitude of healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19 pandemic and potential associated predictors
title_short Perception and attitude of healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia with regard to Covid-19 pandemic and potential associated predictors
title_sort perception and attitude of healthcare workers in saudi arabia with regard to covid-19 pandemic and potential associated predictors
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7523489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32993538
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-020-05443-3
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