Effect of COVID-19 stressors on healthcare workers’ performance and attitude at Suez Canal university hospitals

• Published in: Middle East Current Psychiatry Vol. 28; no. 1; pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Elbqry, Mohammed Goda, Elmansy, Fatma Mohmed, Elsayed, Abeer Ezzat, Mansour, Bassam, Tantawy, Ashraf, Eldin, Maged Bahi, Sayed, Haydy Hassan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 26.01.2021; Springer; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Anxiety; Beliefs, opinions and attitudes; Consent; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 psychological stressors; Data collection; Disease control; Disease transmission; Employee performance; Employees; Health aspects; Healthcare workers performance; Hospitals; Infection; Infection control; Infections; Infectious diseases; Insomnia; Job stress; Knowledge; Medical personnel; Medical research; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Pharmacists; Psychiatry; Questionnaires; Respiratory tract diseases; Stress; Workers; Saudi Arabia; China; Egypt; Suez Canal; COVID-19 psychological stressors; Healthcare workers performance
• ISSN: 2090-5416; 2090-5408; 2090-5416
• DOI: 10.1186/s43045-021-00084-x

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 is an emerging respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus effect on 10-20% of total healthcare workers and was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. This study was designed to assess effect of COVID-19 stressors on healthcare workers’ performance and attitude. A descriptive cross sectional research design was used. A convenient sample (all available healthcare workers) physicians “112,”, nurses “183,” pharmacists “31,” and laboratory technicians “38” was participated to conduct aim of the study. Utilize the study with two tools; online self-administrated questionnaire to assess level of knowledge, attitude, and infection control measures regarding coronavirus disease 2019 and COVID-19 stress scales to assess the varied stressors among healthcare workers. Results More than three quarter of the studied participants had satisfactory level of knowledge and infection control measures. Approximately all of the studied participants had positive attitude regarding COVID-19. A total of 57.4% of the studied medical participants had moderate COVID-19 psychological stress levels, while 49.1% of the studied paramedical participants had moderate COVID-19 psychological stress levels. But less than one quarter had severe COVID-19 psychological stress levels. There is a significant correlation between COVID-19 psychological stressor levels and satisfactory level of knowledge among medical participants. Conclusion/implications for practice Most of healthcare workers had satisfactory level of knowledge, infection control measures, and positive attitude regarding COVID-19. Most of them had moderate COVID-19 psychological stress levels.