Experiences of health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic
Citation: Chemali S, Mari-Sáez A, El Bcheraoui C, et al. Health care workers’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review. Human Resources for Health. 2022;20:27.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: The study was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit, BMG). Open Access funding enabled by Projekt DEAL (Germany).
What is this? In this scoping review, the authors searched for studies of factors that influenced the experiences of health care workers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. They restricted their searches to qualitative studies published in English, German, French, Spanish, or Arabic. The authors searched in March 2021 and found 161 papers.
What was found: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted physical and mental well-being, professional identity, professional activities, work-life balance, and financial status of Health care workers (HCW). Concern about viral transmission affected living situations, personal and professional relationships, and patient communication. At the institutional level, experiences were shaped by leadership and communication, workload, support, training, and hierarchies. At the community level, HCWs’ experiences were formed by public opinion and support, stigmatisation, and access to resources. Lastly, at the policy level, HCWs’ experiences were influenced by satisfaction with governmental responses and guidelines, distribution of governmental support across facilities, impact of governmental measures on personal and work lives, crisis communication, employee rights, and pandemic preparedness.
Implications: The authors stated that interventions to strengthen the resilience of health care workers and support their work during pandemics should be tailored to address all factors that influence their experiences.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of occupation.
This summary was prepared by Joly Ghanawi, checked by Sydney Johnson, and finalized by William Summerskill.