Working in hospitals during a pandemic: investigating the resilience among medical staff during COVID-19 outbreak through qualitative and quantitative research

Abstract

Background: Medical staff in hospitals were faced with great stress as a result of COVID-19’s sudden and severe occurrence, which makes investigating their resilience essential. Aims and methods: Using qualitative and quantitative research methods, this research studied medical staff (n = 403) working in a hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic and followed four main goals: First was evaluating the psychometric properties of the Persian version of Adult Resilience Measure-Revised (ARM-R). The second goal was investigating the personal, relational, social, and organizational issues facing the medical staff during the COVID-19 using semi-structural interviews. The third goal was to determine predictive effects of demographic and work-related variables on resilience using stepwise regression analysis. And the fourth was comparing resilience of three groups of the medical staff (coronavirus group consisted of the medical staff in direct contact with COVID-19 patients; emergency group who work in the emergency department who deal with both COVID and non-COVID patients; and non-coronavirus group who had no contact with COVID-19 patients) using one-way ANOVA. Findings: Results showed that internal reliability/consistency, content, and face validity of the Persian version of the ARM-R are acceptable. The construct validity of the test was also verified using exploratory factor analysis and indicated the two factors of personal and relational resilience. The content of the interviews was analyzed using manifest content analysis, and the results were divided into 27 subcategories and 3 main categories including personal, organizational, and family categories. Moreover, regression analysis revealed that the marital status and age of children can explain resilience variance in some medical staff groups. The results of ANOVA and post hoc test also showed that the total resilience of the non-coronavirus group was greater than the coronavirus and emergency groups; the relational resilience of the coronavirus and non-coronavirus groups was greater than the emergency, and non-coronavirus group’s personal resilience was greater than the emergency group.

Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on provision and use of maternal health services in Allada, southern Benin: a local health system perspective

“…We show that lack of qualified staff, lack of personal protective equipment, and lack of training and space, have had a direct impact on the quality of maternal care services providers felt they could deliver. Other studies have pointed to similar challenges in referral maternity hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa during the pandemic (4), which also extended to other types of care in hospitals in Kenya (18), Ethiopia (19, 20), Nigeria (21), Liberia (22,23), South Africa (22), and even in Iran and the United Kingdom (24,25). The lack of training on how to deal with epidemics was found to be a problem for all providers at all levels of the health system, including primary care physicians (26).…”

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of medical students’ symptoms and feelings during COVID-19 pandemic

“…Adequate time management, among other factors, can also play a protective role in improving quality of life [12]. In a challenging scenario such as a pandemic, di culties in medical training can be balanced with positive aspects of training, which include intellectual stimulation, the feeling of usefulness when caring for patients, the feeling of satisfaction of having your mission ful lled and the acquisition of knowledge and skills [1,14,15]. During a pandemic, moral values linked to the medical profession and the desire to help can play important roles in medical students' actions [1].…”

“…Adequate time management can also play a protective role in improving quality of life, among other factors (Miguel et al, 2021). In a challenging scenario such as a pandemic, difficulties in medical training can be balanced with positive aspects of training, which include intellectual stimulation, the feeling of usefulness when caring for patients, the feeling of satisfaction of having your mission fulfilled and the acquisition of knowledge and skills (Hatefipour et al, 2022;Kobayasi et al, 2018;Tempski et al, 2021).…”