Communication and Cultural Approach to the Situation of Health Professionals in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction. The beginning of the third decade of the 21st century will be remembered for the COVID-19 pandemic and the health crisis it has produced, altering different systems such as the cultural, political, economic, media and communication systems. From the anthropology of health, the interconnections between the health system, communication, and culture can be observed, visible and indivisible by the many edges that coexist and conform to a field of own analysis. Methodology: This empirical research has been developed from a qualitative perspective through 40 anonymous semi-structured interviews in Spain during the height of the health crisis - in the state of alarm - and investigates how this pandemic affected health professionals during the first wave of the pandemic. They were the fundamental barrier to deal with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and they carried out their work in highly precarious conditions, with hardly any personal protection equipment, sufficient human resources, and the essential infrastructures to care for patients. Results/Discussion: The study focuses on three dimensions: (a) the cultural aspects that impregnate the professional activity of the health workers, (b) the emotional aspects in the development of the same about the processes of mourning and death from its symbolic components, and (c) the perceptions it has of the health management carried out by the public response. Conclusions: The results describe the extreme situation these professionals in a health crisis without precedent in decades, reflecting a new anthropological and sociological scenario.

Approach to long-term care during the peak of COVID-19 in the region of Murcia

The global health crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all spheres of society, including long-term care. During the most critical weeks of the first wave of the pandemic in Spain, the difficulties for caregivers have increased to those traditionally existing, characterized by: the difficult fit between work and care, the invisibility and lack of social recognition of their work, the development of care in precariousness and lack of social protection, low wages, burnout syndrome, etc. The general objective of this study is to describe how care work was developed during the peak of the pandemic during the first wave in Spain. In this context, exploratory, descriptive, and transversal research has been developed from an eminently quantitative method through the technique of the survey during April 2020. The major results show that the care work has meant an important overload for the caregivers, increasing the hours they spend on care, affecting their health and their level of emotional fatigue and anxiety before the processes of dying of others. © 2021 Fundacion para la Investigacion Social Avanzada. All rights reserved.