Human Resources Challenges in Health Care Providers Units during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Identification, Solutions, and Consequences

Subject Areas : Health Management Services

sareh samadi ¹ , touraj harati khalilabad ²

1 - Assistant Professor, Faraja Institute of Law Enforcement Sciences and Social Studies, Tehran, Iran
2 - Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medical Information and Management, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2023-02-10 Accepted : 2023-05-28 Published : 2023-04-21

Keywords: Covid-19, Challenges, human resources,

Abstract :

Introduction: The spread of Covid-19 disease in the country and the increase in the number of patients led to an increase in the workload of staff, apathy, fatigue, and leaving the medical staff, which eventually led to a shortage of medical staff and challenges in manpower in hospitals. Therefore, by using the experiences of managers in identifying challenges related to human resources and solving the problems can be appropriate in order to modify the challenge related to human resources in hospitals for providing medical services to patients with Covid-19. Methods: The present applied study was a qualitative study conducted among 31 international, national, and domestic managers who had specialized in hospital management. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed by thematic analysis, using MAXQDA. Results: Based on the analysis of qualitative interviews, the most important challenges related to human resources were: “stress and staff fears of contracting the virus in hospitals”, “existence of resistance in personnel against unexpected changes”, “increase staff workload”, “lack of specialized manpower”, “reluctance of some forces to be present at work in the early days of the disease”, “psychological issues in the treatment team. Conclusion: Given the challenges, the existence of well-planned and pre-determined planning, as well as the importance of manpower in planning for crisis management during epidemics plays an important role.

References:

1- Jamieson DJ, Ellis JE, Jernigan DB, Treadwell TA. Emerging infectious disease outbreaks: old lessons and new challenges for obstetrician-gynecologists. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology, 2006; 194(6): 1546-55.

2- Bygbjerg IC. Double burden of noncommunicable and infectious diseases in developing countries. Science, 2012; 337(6101): 1499-501.

3- Zaidi AK, Awasthi S, deSilva HJ. Burden of infectious diseases in South Asia. Bmj, 2004; 328(7443): 811-5.

4- Perlman S. Another decade, another coronavirus. Mass Medical Soc; 2020.

5- Chan JF, Lau SK, To KK, Cheng VC, Woo PC, Yuen K-Y. Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus: another zoonotic betacoronavirus causing SARS-like disease. Clinical microbiology reviews, 2015; 28(2): 465-522.

6- Vega VB, Ruan Y, Liu J, Lee WH, Wei CL, Se-Thoe SY, et al. Mutational dynamics of the SARS coronavirus in cell culture and human populations isolated in 2003. BMC infectious diseases, 2004; 4(1): 32.

7- WHO. Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV); 2019.

8- Hui DS, I Azhar E, Madani TA, Ntoumi F, Kock R, Dar O, et al. The continuing 2019-nCoV epidemic threat of novel coronaviruses to global health—The latest 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2019; 22(1): 30-45.

9- M. L, Sauer MS. What Is Coronavirus? Johns Hopkins Medicine; 2020.

10- Center for Disease  Control and Prevention (CDC). Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Symptoms of Coronavirus Center for Disease  Control and Prevention (CDC): Center for Disease  Control and Prevention (CDC); 2020 [Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fabout%2Fsymptoms.html.

11- WHO. Home/Emergencies/Diseases/  Coronavirus disease 2019/Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic WHO: WHO; 2020 [Available from: https://www.who.int/.

12- Worldmeter. COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic: Worldmeter; 2020 [Available from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.

13- WHO. Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation reports WHO: WHO; 2020 [Available from: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports/.

14- Azam R, Amirhossein T, Akbari SA, Alireza O, Hajar H, Mohsen A. COVID-19 Pandemic and Comparative Health Policy Learning in Iran. Archieves of Iran Medicine, 2020; 23(4): 220-34. .

15- National committee on Covid-19 Epidemiology, ministry of Health and Medical Education, available at :http://corona.behdasht.gov.ir/page/42/%D9%85%D8%AF%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%B2%DB%8C%E2%80%8C%D9%87%D8%A7; 2020.

16- Kahn LB, Lange F, Wiczer DG. Labor Demand in the time of COVID-19: Evidence from vacancy postings and UI claims. National Bureau of Economic Research; 2020. Report No.: 0898-2937.

17- IMNA. The challenge of UK hospitals with the corona outbreak Internet; 2020 [15 Oct, 2020].

18- Graneheim U, Lundman B. Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness. Nurse Education Today, 2004; 24(2): 105-12.

19- Hsieh H, Shannon S. Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qual Health Res, 2005; 15(9): 1277-88.

20- Rahbari M. About Tackling Coronavirus Outbreaks. Islamic Parliament Research Center Of The Islamic Republic of IRAN; 2021 Feb.

21- Omidi M, Maher A, Etesaminia S. Lessons to be learned from the prevalence of Covid-19 in Iran. Medical Journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2020; 34: 54.

22- Labaf A, Jalili M, Jaafari Pooyan E, Mazinani M. Management of Covid-19 Crisis in Tehran University of Medical Sciences Hospitals: Challenges and Strategies. Journal of School of Public Health and Institute of Public Health Research, 2021; 18(4).

23- Hesam M, Asayesh H, Roohi G, Shariati A, Nasiry H. Assessing the relationship between nurses' quality of work life and their intention to leave the nursing profession. Quarterly Journal of Nursing Management, 2012; 1(3): 28-36.