The Year of Enduring COVID-19: Typology of Attitudes Displayed by Health Care Professionals in Ukraine

Abstract

Aim. Identification and construction of the typology of attitudes of health care professionals in Ukraine to the current COVID-19 situation and vaccination process. Methods. Transcripts of 49 semi-structured interviews subjected to thematic analysis constituted the subject matter of the analysis. On the basis of the categories identified within the thematic analysis process, a typology was developed, with due account of two parameters: the idea about the origin of the virus: artificial or natural, and the attitude of the informants to the policy (implementation of policy decisions) chosen by the authorities to fight the virus. Combination of these two parameters gives four standpoints—types of attitude of health care professionals to the risks associated with COVID-19. Results and conclusion. Analysis of the results has enabled to outline the problem field for assessing the risk of COVID-19, which includes three topics, as well as to point out four typical standpoints in the attitude displayed by health care professionals that are marked as “magical thinking,” “technological thinking,” “negativistic thinking,” “critical thinking.” Originality. The research was conducted during the third wave of coronavirus in Ukraine, therefore, it reflects the analysed opinions of health care professionals about the threat of COVID-19 and vaccination process. The fact that the research was performed using qualitative methods ensured focusing on subjective peculiarities of the perception of changes in the COVID-19 situation.

The Discourse of Daily Life during the War: the 2022 Ukrainian Projection

“…The causes of the war, according to them, are external forces, while nobody is personally responsible for the outbreak of the war. The following are ascribed responsibility for the war: abstract power in general -"consciously or subconsciously the authorities were giving signals to Russia that we can be appropriated" (3), or an abstract political regime "… this happened due to a destructive regime in the neighbouring country …due to the striving to appropriate our history, the history of our nation" (16), or, "the country", to put it in abstract terms -"The invasion of our country by the other country, …our current authorities did not make any concessions to Russia the way they had been doing before" (7), or evade calling specific subject who, in fact, started the war, using stereotypical names of social types -"Muscovite(moskal) [a common informal household term for Russians; has a neutral or slightly dismissive attitude]", or, derogitavely, "Lilliputian" (11). Depersonalisation is manifested in the use of pronouns "we", "they", collocations "those people", "people en masse", verbs in passive voice "were not driven away", this distancing the informant from the events and processes he describes.…”

“…A typical media practice of content consumption of an outside observer is naïve trust (Klymanska & Lutsychyn, 2022): superficial perception of information, unwillingness or impossibility to pass decisions on the reliability or fake nature of information. Representatives of this position address the sources of secondary information, that is information with ready-made comments made by political and military experts (3), popular bloggers (16). As far as consumption of Russian content is concerned, the representatives of this position show declarative, ungrounded lack of trust both in the information, and its sources: "no to Russian sources, they all lie" (1), addressing Russian channels "no, never ever!"…”

“…That is why they ALL should be responsible" (9). "…I think that all residents of Russia are guilty of the war since they have joined it in this or that way" (16). The way of involvement is explained through standard clichés -starting with "…since they are... all Muscovites" (11), "this … is done for their money, even if they are against the war, they keep silent, that is also engagement.…”

“…This means that they all are to blame. Certainly, there are those who are more to blame, but everyone bears general responsibility" (16).…”

The Phenomenon of Social and Pastoral Service in Eastern Slovakia and Northwestern Czech Republic during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparison of Two Selected Units of Former Czechoslovakia in the Context of the Perspective of Positive Solutions

“…At the end of 2019, the outbreak of COVID-19 occurred, causing severe risks within the EU associated with discrimination, poverty, and the social exclusion of many sections of the population [1][2][3][4][5]. The pandemic paralysed the world and the European economy.…”