Assessment of working conditions and risks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic: results of an online survey of personnel of medical organizations

Abstract

Introduction. In a pandemic, doctors and other staff working alongside them are among those at risk of infection on a daily basis.Aim. To identify aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic that are relevant to healthcare workers.Materials and methods. An online survey was conducted among employees of healthcare organizations. The study included 269 people, the analysis was carried out in the R software environment. The first group included medical workers who had direct contact with patients with COVID-19; the second group – workers whose contact with the infected was not recorded.Results and discussion. The results of the survey were analyzed both for the sample as a whole and for groups. In the survey, 84.8% of respondents expressed concern about the pandemic, and among contacts, anxiety was 3 times more common than among non-contacts (OR = 3.07 [1.14; 10.43]). Respondents rated their awareness of SARS-CoV-2 highly: the contact group was more confident in the completeness of the information provided than the non-contact group. The preparedness of clinics for a pandemic was not highly rated. Contact persons – 84%, non-contact persons – 71% felt a high risk of infection at the workplace. A more pronounced lack of protective equipment was felt by respondents from the group of contact workers. Self-restriction of social contacts did not become a popular and statistically significant measure: health workers limited their contacts in 37.9% of cases, among them contacting – 55.4%, non-contacting – 44.6%. In the survey, it was proposed to assess what causes concern: the risk of isolation from the family and social environment was noted by 76.2% of respondents; fear of the danger of the disease itself - 36.2%; the consequences of one’s own infection for the well-being of the family and professional activities, as well as society as a whole - 34.8%; the risk of infecting family members and relatives is 33.0%.Conclusions. These studies can provide significant assistance in planning health care to repel future threats of a similar nature.