Behavior, social and economic impact of COVID-19 responses among healthcare professionals: Development and validation of COVID-19 Responses Impact Questionnaire (COVRiQ).

As the world goes through the fourth wave and the continued emergence of new COVID-19 variants, the general and work-related risks of healthcare professionals are expected to rise. This has the capacity to adversely affect productivity and efficiency in the healthcare delivery system, particularly in this era of global shortage of trained healthcare professionals. We aimed to develop and validate a new instrument known as the COVID-19 Responses Impact Questionnaire (COVRiQ) to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on the healthcare professionals managing the COVID-19 pandemic. This methodological study involved three steps: the formulation of the COVRiQ draft, content and face validation, and construct validity. A total of 61 questions were drafted with 3-point Likert scale answers. From the list, 39 were rated valid by a panel of experts and subsequently tested on 301 participants. The results were analyzed and validated using exploratory factor analysis on SPSS. Components were extracted and questions with low factor loading were removed. The internal consistency was measured with Cronbach's alpha. Following analysis, three components were extracted and named as behavioral, social, and economic impacts. In general, 29 items were deleted leaving 32 out of 61 questions retained as the final validated COVRiQ. Internal consistency showed high reliability with Cronbach's alpha of 0.91. Participants scored a total cumulative mean of 118.74 marks. A subanalysis by occupation showed that medical assistants scored the lowest in the group with a score of 22.3% whereas medical specialists scored the highest at 77.7%. Higher score indicates higher impact of COVID-19 responses among healthcare professionals. The new COVRiQ consisting of 32 items demonstrated to be user friendly with good psychometric properties and valid for assessing the impacts of COVID-19 responses among healthcare professionals.

Impacts of Covid-19 Pandemic on Frontline Health Care Workers in Africa and Asian Countries: A Systematic Review

Introduction: The outbreak of COVID-19 is causing a serious global panic, with resultant impacts inflicting difficulties among human population. Frontline healthcare workers face increased impacts due to their roles during the pandemic. Impacts on healthcare workers may worsen the current global shortage of trained healthcare workforce and grossly affect public healthcare services if the pandemic persists. This review assessed the impact of COVID-19 on frontline healthcare workers in order to suggest measures that would reduce the impacts and optimize public healthcare and safety. Methods: We conducted literature search on PubMed, Medline, Google Scholar, Science Direct, CINAHL, and PsycINFO using key words and phrases in line with PRISMA protocol. Results: Out of 537 studies retrieved, 39 which met the inclusion criteria were included. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the frontline healthcare workers in Africa and Asia can be grouped into psychological, physical, and economic, with higher impacts seen among women and nurses. Conclusion: Strategies that address the impacts of COVID-19 among the healthcare workers would require multiple approaches from the perspective of individuals, institution and government levels. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Malaysian Journal of Medicine & Health Sciences is the property of Universiti Putra Malaysia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)