A Qualitative Study of the Impact of COVID 19, on Health Care Providers for Cancer Patients: An Original Research

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Abstract

Introduction:

In the challenging times of the COVID-19, the care of individuals with the debilitating diseases such as cancers has been an additional burden to the medical team. We aim to find out about the obstacles for the clinical care of the patients in the COVID, the questions frequently asked by cancer patients, and the medical care and support teams' general experience in taking care of cancer patients during the times of the pandemic.

Materials and Methods:

We conducted a Qualtrics survey that was developed by Cancer and Aging Research Group among 275 health care providers to cancer patients during. There were twenty questions in the survey. Of these 20, three open-ended questions were included that inquired about the barriers to the clinical care of cancer patients during COVID-19; the questions asked to the health care team by cancer patients or the attendants; health care teams general experience in the situations of the COVID-19. Two different reviewers performed the quality analysis for the open-ended questions after they were assigned a code. SPSS ver-23 was used for the descriptive statistics.

Results:

Medical services organizational difficulties and addressing necessities and support were generally reported. Hindrances to the medical health teams included the included administrative difficulties, access of the patient to the support and basic resources, uncertainties for patients' psychological and physical well-being, and teleconsultation challenges. The most common concern of the patients was the safety and the need for the treatment. Medical health care teams were seen to worry for the mental and the physical health of cancer patient. There was also reported concern for the medical team's own safety, obstruction in multi-level establishments; also the health team was seen feeling positive leadership and communications.

Conclusion:

The medical health provider teams felt a need for thorough support at the organizational level for cancer patients. Medical teams were expected to comprehend the short-term and long-term impact of the COVID-19 on cancer patients. It was accepted that there has been an increased workload and mental stress among the providers. Appreciating the experiences of the medical teams during the pandemic may help in the future guidance in the care of cancer patients.

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Most cited references 12

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Prevalence of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Sofia Pappa, Vasiliki Ntella, Timoleon Giannakas … (2020)

Highlights • At least one in five healthcare professionals report symptoms of depression and anxiety. • Almost four in 10 healthcare workers experience sleeping difficulties and/or insomnia. • Rates of anxiety and depression were higher for female healthcare workers and nursing staff. • Milder mood symptoms are common and screening should aim to identify mild and sub-threshold syndromes.

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Mental health care for medical staff in China during the COVID-19 outbreak

Qiongni Chen, Mining Liang, Yamin Li … (2020)

In December, 2019, an outbreak of a novel coronavirus pneumonia occurred in Wuhan (Hubei, China), and subsequently attracted worldwide attention. 1 By Feb 9, 2020, there were 37 294 confirmed and 28 942 suspected cases of 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in China. 2 Facing this large-scale infectious public health event, medical staff are under both physical and psychological pressure. 3 To better fight the COVID-19 outbreak, as the largest top-class tertiary hospital in Hunan Province, the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University undertakes a considerable part of the investigation of suspected patients. The hospital has set up a 24-h fever clinic, two mild suspected infection patient screening wards, and one severe suspected infection patient screening ward. In addition to the original medical staff at the infectious disease department, volunteer medical staff have been recruited from multiple other departments. The Second Xiangya Hospital—workplace of the chairman of the Psychological Rescue Branch of the Chinese Medical Rescue Association—and the Institute of Mental Health, the Medical Psychology Research Center of the Second Xiangya Hospital, and the Chinese Medical and Psychological Disease Clinical Medicine Research Center responded rapidly to the psychological pressures on staff. A detailed psychological intervention plan was developed, which mainly covered the following three areas: building a psychological intervention medical team, which provided online courses to guide medical staff to deal with common psychological problems; a psychological assistance hotline team, which provided guidance and supervision to solve psychological problems; and psychological interventions, which provided various group activities to release stress. However, the implementation of psychological intervention services encountered obstacles, as medical staff were reluctant to participate in the group or individual psychology interventions provided to them. Moreover, individual nurses showed excitability, irritability, unwillingness to rest, and signs of psychological distress, but refused any psychological help and stated that they did not have any problems. In a 30-min interview survey with 13 medical staff at The Second Xiangya Hospital, several reasons were discovered for this refusal of help. First, getting infected was not an immediate worry to staff—they did not worry about this once they began work. Second, they did not want their families to worry about them and were afraid of bringing the virus to their home. Third, staff did not know how to deal with patients when they were unwilling to be quarantined at the hospital or did not cooperate with medical measures because of panic or a lack of knowledge about the disease. Additionally, staff worried about the shortage of protective equipment and feelings of incapability when faced with critically ill patients. Many staff mentioned that they did not need a psychologist, but needed more rest without interruption and enough protective supplies. Finally, they suggested training on psychological skills to deal with patients' anxiety, panic, and other emotional problems and, if possible, for mental health staff to be on hand to directly help these patients. Accordingly, the measures of psychological intervention were adjusted. First, the hospital provided a place for rest where staff could temporarily isolate themselves from their family. The hospital also guaranteed food and daily living supplies, and helped staff to video record their routines in the hospital to share with their families and alleviate family members' concerns. Second, in addition to disease knowledge and protective measures, pre-job training was arranged to address identification of and responses to psychological problems in patients with COVID-19, and hospital security staff were available to be sent to help deal with uncooperative patients. Third, the hospital developed detailed rules on the use and management of protective equipment to reduce worry. Fourth, leisure activities and training on how to relax were properly arranged to help staff reduce stress. Finally, psychological counsellors regularly visited the rest area to listen to difficulties or stories encountered by staff at work, and provide support accordingly. More than 100 frontline medical staff can rest in the provided rest place, and most of them report feeling at home in this accomodation. Maintaining staff mental health is essential to better control infectious diseases, although the best approach to this during the epidemic season remains unclear.4, 5 The learning from these psychological interventions is expected to help the Chinese government and other parts of the world to better respond to future unexpected infectious disease outbreaks.

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Managing mental health challenges faced by healthcare workers during covid-19 pandemic

Neil Greenberg, Mary Docherty, Sam Gnanapragasam … (2020)

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Pharm Bioallied Sci

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Pharm Bioallied Sci

Journal ID (publisher-id): JPBS

Title: Journal of Pharmacy & Bioallied Sciences

Publisher: Wolters Kluwer - Medknow (India )

ISSN (Print): 0976-4879

ISSN (Electronic): 0975-7406

Publication date (Print): November 2021

Publication date (Electronic): 10 November 2021

Volume: 13

Issue: Suppl 2

Pages: S1341-S1344

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Surgical Oncology, Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India

[2 ]Department of General Surgery, Jubilee Mission Medical College Hospital and Research Institute, Thrissur, Kerala, India

[3 ]Department of Dentistry, PRM Medical College and Hospital, Baripada, Odisha, India

[4 ]MPH Biostatistics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

[5 ]Consultant Dental Surgeon Cancer Care initiative TATA TRUSTS, Cuttack Odisha, Cuttack, Odisha, India

[6 ]Department of Prosthodontics, Kalinga Institute of Dental Sciences, KIIT-Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India

[7 ]MPH Biostatistics, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi of Arabia

Author notes

Address for correspondence: Dr. Rohit Kumar Jha, Department of Surgical Oncology, Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India. E-mail: rohitjhaonco@ 123456gmail.com

Article

Publisher ID: JPBS-13-1341

DOI: 10.4103/jpbs.jpbs_149_21

PMC ID: 8687014

SO-VID: bd60955a-95bc-43b9-87ea-a35459cf2c3e

License:

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

History

Date received : 09 March 2021

Date revision received : 24 April 2021

Date accepted : 16 June 2021

A Qualitative Study of the Impact of COVID 19, on Health Care Providers for Cancer Patients: An Original Research

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Abstract

Introduction:

Materials and Methods:

Results:

Conclusion:

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Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

Most cited references 12

Prevalence of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Mental health care for medical staff in China during the COVID-19 outbreak

Managing mental health challenges faced by healthcare workers during covid-19 pandemic

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