Safety and Awareness of Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Outbreak; A Cross-Sectional Study

Objective: COVID-19 has affected millions of people throughout the world and due to the high rate of its spread, it is very vital to protect the people who are at the frontlines of COVID-19 positive cases. In this study, we have analyzed the level of awareness among the Healthcare Workers (HCWs) and level of preparedness by the Healthcare Authorities (HCA) for the safety of HCWs.

Study Design: Cross-sectional prospective study.

Subjects and Methods: Study was conducted online, for 3 months, from July to September 2020, at various Health Care Facilities (HCF) of Sindh, Pakistan. The survey instrument was circulated among the HCWs and a total of 419 filled forms were received and analyzed using SPSS 24.

Results: Out of 419 participants, 54.4% were male and 45.6% female. Half of the respondents were doctors (50.1%) with majority having 1-5 years (61.6%) of experience. It was found that the major sources of information of HCWs about COVID-19 was social media (80.4%) and only 18.6% of HCWs had trainings to deal with pandemics. HCA couldn’t manage to maintain adequate supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) as goggle/eye shields were available only to 20.5% HCWs, shoe covers to 24.3%, N95 masks to 28.5%.

Conclusion: We identified serious concern in the source of information but despite that the knowledge and awareness level was quite acceptable among our study respondents. However, greater efforts to be taken for training campaigns for HCWs as well as supply of PPE.