Perception of healthcare workers towards ethical aspects of responsiveness of COVID 19 outbreak: A cross-sectional study

J Family Med Prim Care. 2022 Jan;11(1):60-66. doi: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_72_21. Epub 2022 Jan 31.

Abstract

Introduction: COVID-19 has spread all over the world and most of the countries are still grappled with the Pandemic. Health-care-workers (HCWs) being the frontlines during such pandemics have different beliefs and faiths with regards to ethical aspects of preparations.

Methodology: In order to study the perception of HCW about ethical aspects of COVID-19, a cross-sectional study was done in a tertiary-care-teaching hospital. A pretested questionnaire was circulated among the participants on a digital platform.

Results: The HCWs were divided over many statements, like if COVID-19 was more hype than reality (45.77% disagreed and 43.25% agreed). 57.44% of participants either agreed or strongly agreed that the treatment of non-COVID-19 cases suffered due to arrangements made for COVID-19 cases. When the responses received against individual statements were compared with various other socio-demographic variables as a denominator, various interesting results were revealed. There was a significant difference of opinion among the participating HCWs (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: Differences of the opinions had their relationships to demographic characteristics of the subjects as well as related to perceived knowledge of COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; World Health Organization; ethics; health care workers; pandemic.