Dataset Information

Risk of COVID-19-related bullying, harassment and stigma among healthcare workers: an analytical cross-sectional global study.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Essential healthcare workers (HCW) uniquely serve as both COVID-19 healers and, potentially, as carriers of SARS-CoV-2. We assessed COVID-19-related stigma and bullying against HCW controlling for social, psychological, medical and community variables.

Design

We nested an analytical cross-sectional study of COVID-19-related stigma and bullying among HCW within a larger mixed-methods effort assessing COVID-19-related lived experience and impact. Adjusted OR (aOR) and 95% CIs evaluated the association between working in healthcare settings and experience of COVID-19-related bullying and stigma, controlling for confounders. Thematic qualitative analysis provided insight into lived experience of COVID-19-related bullying.

Setting

We recruited potential participants in four languages (English, Spanish, French, Italian) through Amazon Mechanical Turk's online workforce and Facebook.

Participants

Our sample included 7411 people from 173 countries who were aged 18 years or over.

Findings

HCW significantly experienced more COVID-19-related bullying after controlling for the confounding effects of job-related, personal, geographic and sociocultural variables (aOR: 1.5; 95% CI 1.2 to 2.0). HCW more frequently believed that people gossip about others with COVID-19 (OR: 2.2; 95% CI 1.9 to 2.6) and that people with COVID-19 lose respect in the community (OR: 2.3; 95% CI 2.0 to 2.7), both which elevate bullying risk (OR: 2.7; 95% CI 2.3 to 3.2, and OR: 3.5; 95% CI 2.9 to 4.2, respectively). The lived experience of COVID-19-related bullying relates frequently to public identities as HCW traverse through the community, intersecting with other domains (eg, police, racism, violence).

Interpretation

After controlling for a range of confounding factors, HCW are significantly more likely to experience COVID-19-related stigma and bullying, often in the intersectional context of racism, violence and police involvement in community settings.

SUBMITTER: Dye TD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7780430 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Highlights • 4.3% of our hospital HCWs were infected with COVID 19 during the study period.• There was no significant difference between hospital and community acquisition of the infection with age, nationality, or presence of co-morbidities.• There was a significant difference between hospital and community-acquired concerning HCWs categories, gender and being at risk of exposure to COVID-19 in the hospital.• 78% of the infected HCWs had no chronic diseases and all had an uneventful recovery. Introduction Corona Virus Disease 19 (COVID-19) is a new emerging infectious disease that was first identified in China, in December 2020 which is caused by SARS-CoV-2. This study describes the characteristics healthcare workers (HCWs) who tested positive for COVID-19 in a tertiary care hospital in Oman. Method a cross-sectional descriptive analysis of COVID-19 infected HCWs. Results During the study period, 204 HCWs were tested positive for COVID-19 by rRT-PCR test with a test positivity rate of 21.2% and the percentage of infected hospital staff was 4.3%. The mean age was 36 years, 2.2% of the male staff were infected while 9.3% of the female staff got infected. Among the clinicians, 4.7% were infected and among the nurses, 4.1% were infected. 61.3% (125) of infection were community acquired followed by hospital acquisition 25.5% (52) and no source was identified in 13.2% (27). There was a significant difference between hospital acquired and community acquired COVID-19 infection between different HCWs categories (p?<?0.001), gender (p?=?0.041) and being at risk of COVID 19 exposure in the hospital (p?<?0.001). There were no significant differences in relation to nationality (p?=?0498), age (p?=?0.119) or presence of co-morbidities (p?=?0.326). 78% (n?=?160) had no chronic diseases, presented with ARI and fever 44% (n?=?90) and all had uneventful full recovery. The peak of infection acquisition was after Eid AL Fiter Festival. Conclusion HCWs are at an increased risk of COVID-19 infection at the workplace. Strengthening the infection control measures to prevent exposures from infected patients or colleagues and reduce the spread of COVID- 19 is a necessity.

Project description:BackgroundDeterminants of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance are complex; how perceptions of the effectiveness of science, healthcare and government impact personal COVID-19 vaccine acceptance is unclear, despite all three domains providing critical roles in development, funding and provision, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine.ObjectiveTo estimate impact of perception of science, healthcare systems, and government along with sociodemographic, psychosocial, and cultural characteristics on vaccine acceptance.DesignWe conducted a global nested analytical cross-sectional study of how the perceptions of healthcare, government and science systems have impacted COVID-19 on vaccine acceptance.SettingGlobal Facebook, Instagram and Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk) users from 173 countries.Participants7411 people aged 18 years or over, and able to read English, Spanish, Italian, or French.MeasurementsWe used Χ2 analysis and logistic regression-derived adjusted Odds Ratios (aORs) and 95% CIs to evaluate the relationship between effectiveness perceptions and vaccine acceptance controlling for other factors. We used natural language processing and thematic analysis to analyse the role of vaccine-related narratives in open-ended explanations of effectiveness.ResultsAfter controlling for confounding, attitude toward science was a strong predictor of vaccine acceptance, more so than other attitudes, demographic, psychosocial or COVID-19-related variables (aOR: 2.1; 95% CI: 1.8 to 2.5). The rationale for science effectiveness was dominated by vaccine narratives, which were uncommon in other domains.LimitationsThis study did not include participants from countries where Facebook and Amazon mTurk are not available, and vaccine acceptance reflected intention rather than actual behaviour.ConclusionsAs our findings show, vaccine-related issues dominate public perception of science's impact around COVID-19, and this perception of science relates strongly to the decision to obtain vaccination once available.

Project description:The emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning vaccine-elicited immunity are two public health challenges that occurred simultaneously and synergistically during the summer of 2021 and led to a surging demand for COVID-19 vaccine booster dose (BD) rollout. This study aimed to evaluate the COVID-19 vaccine booster hesitancy (VBH) among Czech healthcare workers to explore the potential determinants of VBH. A national cross-sectional survey-based study was carried out between 3 and 11 November 2021, using an online self-administered questionnaire (SAQ) that explored the participants' demographic characteristics, COVID-19 infection and vaccine anamneses, willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine BD, and the psychosocial drivers of VBH. A total of 3454 HCW properly responded to the online SAQ, of which 80.9% were females, 30.3% were medical professionals, and 50.5% were ≤47 years old. Most of the participants were already inoculated against SARS-CoV-2 (95.2%), and BTN162b2 was the most commonly administered vaccine (90.7%). As the study sample was planned to represent the target population, it revealed a high level of BD acceptance (71.3%) among Czech HCW, while 12.2% were still hesitant and 16.6% were against the currently available BD. These results are consistent with other recent results from central Europe. Medical professional, male, and older participants were more likely to accept BD rather than allied health professional, female, and younger participants. The BDs' perceived effectiveness against severe illness, symptomatic infection, and community transmission was a significant and strong predictor for BD acceptance, while the effectiveness against the circulating variants was not that important for our target population. The BDs' perceived safety and ethical dilemmas of vaccine justice should be addressed sufficiently while communicating with HCW and other population groups. The altruistic reasons for BD acceptance, i.e., family protection, patient protection, and community health protection, underpin the recommendation of postponing the COVID-19 vaccine mandating in favour of stressing these altruistic concerns amid public health messaging.