Healthcare professionals’ perceived stigmatization about direct care of COVID-19 Patients: development and validation of the discrimination about COVID-19 (DisCOV-19) instrument

Abstract

Background: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a public health concern worldwide. Healthcare professionals are among the most vulnerable groups in the fight against COVID-19 because they are directly involved in the care of at-risk persons and patients with Covid-19.Objectives: This study aimed to measure the level to which healthcare workers feel that they can be discriminated due to their involvement in the direct care of COVID-19 patients.Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among healthcare professionals in Nigeria. A nineteen-item discriminationagainst COVID-19 (DisCOV-19) questionnaire was developed and validated for the study. Descriptive statistics and One- Way Analysis of Variance were used for data analysis. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: Out of the 286 healthcare practitioners that participated in the study, 58.4% and 30.1% were pharmacists and physicians,respectively. The majority of the participants were at least "moderately concerned" about disability (60.9%), death (71.7%), unknown complications (65.1%), and risk of infecting family members and friends (83.2%) if asked to provide care for COVID-19 patients. The physicians had a significantly higher mean discrimination score compared to the pharmacists (p=0.041). Pharmacists had a significantly lower mean discrimination score than the nurses (p=0.011).Conclusions: Many of the healthcare professionals reported a certain level of concern and perceived that they could face some forms of discrimination for providing care to COVID-19 patients.