Gender Differences in Psychological and Behavioral Responses of Infected and Uninfected Health-Care Workers During the Early COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

Objective: Understanding gender differences in responses of health-care workers (HCWs) to COVID-19 outbreak is an effective way to promote customized supports.Methods: During February 2020, 103 HCWs infected with COVID-19 (64 females and 39 males) and 535 uninfected HCWs (383 females and 152 males) were recruited in a cross-sectional study. Level of attention, six emotional status, and self-evaluation of eight protective measures were recorded. Multivariable Firth's logistic regressions were applied to explored independent effect of gender.Results: During early outbreak, female HCWs were more likely to give greater attention, adjusted OR:1.92 (95%CI 1.14–3.23) in total HCWs. Higher proportion of anxiety was observed in female HCWs, adjusted OR:3.14 (95%CI 1.98–4.99) for total HCWs, 4.32(95%CI 1.32–14.15) for infected HCWs and 2.97 (1.78, 4.95) for uninfected HCWs. Proportion of pessimism, fear, full of fighting spirit, and optimism were low, and no gender differences were observed. During a later outbreak, a majority of HCWs reported being very familiar with eight protective measures. After training, a proportion of high self-evaluation in hand hygiene, wearing gloves, and surgical masks increased independently in female HCWs, and adjusted ORs were 3.07 (95% CI 1.57–5.99), 2.37 (95% CI 1.26–4.49), and 1.92 (95% CI 1.02–3.62), respectively. Infection status amplified gender difference in anxiety, hand hygiene, and glove wearing.Conclusion: Female HCWs perceived the outbreak seriously, effective emotional and psychological well-ness should be targeted at female HCWs preferentially, and male HCWs should be encouraged to express their feelings and be further trained.

The Stress and Anxiety to Viral Epidemics-6 Items (SAVE-6) Scale: A New Instrument for Assessing the Anxiety Response of General Population to the Viral Epidemic During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Though the results of this study showed a good single model of the SAVE-6 scale with good reliability, we observed a gender difference in the scores of SAVE-6 scale. In this pandemic era, the level of stress or anxiety due to the viral epidemic was reported to be higher among women compared to men in the general population (Hou et al, 2020;Mohammadpour et al, 2020), and even in the special population, such as healthcare workers (Huang et al, 2021;Lee et al, 2021). Silva et al (2020) also observed the higher level of anxiety among female participants while developing their new rating scale, the COVID-19 anxiety scale.…”

Adesão à higienização das mãos como controle de infecção hospitalar na pandemia da COVID-19: Revisão bibliográfica

“…Em 2020 a OMS lançou a campanha "lave as mãos, salve vidas" (OMS, 2020) a fim de reduzir a transmissão e contágio pelo novo coronavírus, no entanto, os resultados desta revisão mostram que a higienização das mãos pelos profissionais de saúde acontece, na grande parte das vezes, apenas mediante ao contato com o paciente (Agarwal et al 2021;Husain 2020;Derksen, Keller & Lippke, 2020;Al Abri, Al Zeedi & Al Lawati, 2021;Afemikhe et al 2020;Abbas et al 2020;Huang, Q et al 2021). Agarwal et al (2021) mostraram que nos meses de julho e agosto de 2020, frequentemente, 78,56% dos profissionais de saúde de diferentes lugares da Índia cumprimentavam os colegas com aperto de mãos, 62,76% tocavam nariz, boca e olhos sem higienizar as mãos, apenas 52,82% seguiam as normas de higienização das mãos preconizadas pela OMS e 67,89% higienizavam as mãos após ter contato com pacientes.…”

“…Os estudos de Huang, Q et al (2021) não infectados e observou taxa de adesão menor entre os profissionais infectados (77,2%) quando comprados aos não infectados (86,7%). Huang, Q et al (2021) mostraram uma associação direta da baixa adesão à higienização ao maior número de infectados. Já Al Abri, Al Zeedi & Al Lawati (2021) evidenciaram ótima adesão pelos profissionais infectados (96,8%).…”

“…Já Al Abri, Al Zeedi & Al Lawati (2021) evidenciaram ótima adesão pelos profissionais infectados (96,8%). Os autores mostram também que as mulheres enfermeiras foram os profissionais infectados que apresentaram maior nível de ansiedade, o que foi responsável pela baixa adesão à higienização das mãos (Huang, Q et al 2021). Estudos evidenciaram que a Síndrome de Burnout, causada pela sobrecarga de trabalho, está relacionada a menor adesão as práticas de controle de infecção pelos profissionais da linha de frente na pandemia (Tan et al 2020b;Matsuo et al 2020).…”

Severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) seroprevalence among laboratory staff: Safe handling of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) samples

“…A large study on HCW did not show any association between age or gender with positivity for SARS-CoV-2 IgG 2 . Interestingly, gender differences were observed in the perception of epidemic, female being more emotionally affected and pay more attention to protective measures 3 .…”