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Worry from contracting COVID-19 infection and its stigma among Egyptian health care provider

Research Authors
Doaa Mohamed Osman, Fatma R Khalaf, Gellan K Ahmed, Ahmed Y Abdelbadee, Ahmed M Abbas, Heba M Mohammed
Research Date
Research Journal
Journal of the Egyptian Public Health Association
Research Publisher
SpringerOpen
Research Vol
vol.97 , issue 1
Research Website
https://scholar.google.com.eg/scholar?oi=bibs&cluster=832442929061118121&btnI=1&hl=en
Research Year
2022
Research_Pages
1-10
Research Abstract

Healthcare providers (HCPs) in COVID-19 epidemic face stressful workload of disease management, shortage of protective equipment and high risk of infection and mortality. These stressors affect greatly their mental health. The aim is to identify working conditions among Egyptian HCPs during COVID-19 epidemic as well as stigma and worry perceptions from contracting COVID-19 infection and their predictors. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 565 HCPs. Data was collected through Google online self-administered questionnaire comprised seven parts: demographics characteristics, knowledge and attitude of COVID-19, working condition, worry of contracting COVID-19 at work, discrimination intention at work for COVID-19 patients, stigma assessment using impact stigma, and internalized shame scales. The vast majority of HCPs (94.7%) were worried from contracting COVID-19 at work. Risk factors for perceiving severe worry from contracting COVID-19 were expecting infection as a severe illness, believing that infection will not be successfully controlled, improbability to continue working during the pandemic even if in a well/fit health, high discrimination intention and impact stigma scales. Significantly high impact stigma scores were detected among those aged < 30 years, females, workers primarily in sites susceptible for contracting COVID-19 infection, those had severe worry from contracting infection at work, and high internalized shame scale. The risk factors for perceiving higher internalized shame scores were not having a previous experience in working during a pandemic, high discrimination intention towards COVID-19 …