Original Research Article
Year: 2022 | Month: November | Volume: 12 | Issue: 11 | Pages: 49-56
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijhsr.20221108
Challenges And Concerns of Health Care Professionals Working in Clinics During COVID-19 Phase
Dr. Ashwini O. Kamble1, Manav Rajpurohit2
1Assistant Professor, Deccan Education Society’s, Brijlal Jindal College of Physiotherapy, Pune-411004, Maharashtra, India
2Intern, Deccan Education Society’s, Brijlal Jindal College of Physiotherapy, Pune-411004, Maharashtra, India
Corresponding Author: Ashwini O. Kamble
ABSTRACT
Background: Covid-19 is a pandemic, with severe clinical manifestations and high lethality. It has led to numerous problems involving public, administrative and health care sector and thus has become the global issue. In this pandemic situation the healthcare worker strives to provide high quality healthcare to the patients. However due to contagious & close proximity to patients, there is always a risk of infection. Enormous literature is available on impact of COVID 19 on physical and mental health of frontline doctors. But no review is available on impact of Covid-19 on health care professionals who work in private clinics and mostly rely on clinical practice for their income. By knowing their concerns and challenges, specific policies and programs can be made for health, safety and wellbeing of health professionals.
Objective: To identify the challenges and concerns faced by healthcare professionals practicing in private clinics during COVID-19.
Methodology: A questionnaire comprising of domains namely precautionary concerns, financial concerns, psycho-social concerns and other related concerns was designed and validated. It was circulated using Google forms among Healthcare Professionals practicing in private clinics via electronic media. Data was then collected over a period of 3 months; it was then analyzed and represented as descriptive statistics.
Results: Total of 114 Healthcare Professionals (HCP) participated in the study of which 101 met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and their concerns were identified during COVID-19 phase. In precautionary related concerns, for 30% of HCP cost of PPE and for 11% of HCP availability of PPE was the concern while 35% said both were the problems for them. 92.07% and 86.13% HCP reported decrease in patient flow and income respectively. 52.47% reported they had fear and anxiety while 42.57% had depression sometimes during the course of time.13% always avoided their family members.23.76% sometimes felt insecure about society’s negative attitude. 1% always and 3% often were threatened by the society.
Conclusion: From the study it was concluded that Healthcare Professionals who are working in private clinics faced numerous challenges and were concerned about precautionary, financial, psycho-social issues at varying levels.
Key words: [COVID-19, Concerns, Healthcare Professionals, Private Clinics]