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Abstract
With the increasing spread and mortality of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, it is essential for the healthcare community to be prepared per the international standards. This study is focused on assessing the preparedness of healthcare personnel and the effectiveness of an educational intervention to improve this preparedness in those dealing with the COVID-19 infection. A prospective, multicenter audit cycle was conducted on 400 healthcare professionals (271 junior doctors, 90 nurses, 39 non-clinical hospital workers) sampled through stratified random sampling. A questionnaire that was based on “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC's) checklist for healthcare personnel's preparedness for transport and arrival of patients with confirmed or possible COVID-19” was sent to the participants after which an informative document, framed on the information provided by World Health Organization (WHO), CDC, and local guidelines from the Government of Pakistan's website, was distributed through social media platforms. The questionnaire was repeated after 2 weeks to close the audit loop. Chi-Square test and paired sample t-test were used to test significance. In the pre-intervention portion of the study, it was found out that the doctors and nurses had higher knowledge scores compared to the non-clinical hospital staff (p ≤ 0.05). A statistically significant improvement was seen after the educational intervention was deployed (p ≤ 0.05). The study concludes that the non-clinical staff, being a vital part of the healthcare framework, need to be educated and effective approaches for official inclusion of relevant information need to be incorporated into clinical practice to limit the transmission of COVID-19.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease or COVID-19 is a newly discovered infectious ailment of the respiratory tract that was first reported in the province of Wuhan, China in December of 2019 and since has spread rapidly across the globe [1]
Significant is the preparedness of the junior doctors because a major portion of the decision making is handled by them, of the nurses as they are directly involved in patient care, and of the non-clinical hospital staff workers who are responsible for a great deal of movement within the hospital
Keeping in view the rapidly rising number of cases, this study is aimed at evaluating the preparedness of the healthcare professionals as per the international guidelines, finding out if a statistically significant difference is present between the preparedness of healthcare workers based on their designation, and if an improvement could be made through an educational intervention
Summary
Coronavirus disease or COVID-19 is a newly discovered infectious ailment of the respiratory tract that was first reported in the province of Wuhan, China in December of 2019 and since has spread rapidly across the globe [1]. Significant is the preparedness of the junior doctors because a major portion of the decision making is handled by them, of the nurses as they are directly involved in patient care, and of the non-clinical hospital staff workers who are responsible for a great deal of movement within the hospital. Since they directly deal with the possible or confirmed cases, are most vulnerable to getting infected themselves and may become a source of transmission to thousands of the uninfected population. The burden would be immense if a healthcare provider contracts the disease, making it highly necessary for them to be sufficiently prepared [7]
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