A Qualitative Assessment of Stress Among Frontline Health Workers During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: Being on the frontline, health care workers are most likely to get exposed to all kinds of stress in the ongoing Coronavirus-2019 pandemic. Both physical and mental stress could influence their well-being and also affect their work efficiency. There is a need of active intervention to restore and maintain the mental health of the frontline health workers. Thus, it is essential to gain an insight into their problems so that it would enable to identify appropriate solutions. Aim: To get an insight into the stress experienced by the COVID-19 community surveillance workers and to explore the perceptions of stress related trigger factors and coping strategies. Materials and Methods: This qualitative study was based on “Focus Group Discussion (FGD)” method and was associated with Nilratan Sircar Medical College & Hospital Kolkata. The participants were COVID-19 community surveillance workers who mainly comprised of “honorary health workers” and “100 days field workers (18-55 years)”, employed in 5 different urban health centers in the Kolkata corporation area during April to June 2020. A total of 55 participants were included in the study in five sessions. Researchers took notes during the session, which was also recorded verbatim. Discussions were mainly conducted over four key areas namely positive aspects of COVID-19 surveillance activities, stress related to surveillance activities, precipitating factors related to stress and coping strategies for these stressful periods. Data was summarised and analysed qualitatively. Results: Participants felt that “they provided service to the society and understood their importance in breaking the chain of transmission”. “This job gave them pride of being a part of health system along with income generation”. However, they also expressed about the stressful situation related to the surveillance activity like social ostracisation, verbal and even physical abuse. Inadequate supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was revealed. Most of the surveillance workers were informally trained thus they sought help for formal training for surveillance activity. Conclusion: Although the frontline health care workers felt proud to be involved in the surveillance work, almost all of them expressed apprehension against social stigmatisation, verbal and physical abuse. The need for formal training in surveillance work was evident.