Pattern and perception of wellbeing, quality of work life and quality of care of health professionals in Southwest Nigeria

Exploration of Mental Health and Well-Being of Healthcare Professionals During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction

In response to curbing the spread of SARS-CoV-2, healthcare professionals (HCPs) encounter a multitude of mental stresses. The primary intent was to explore the mental health and well-being experienced by HCPs in Ekiti State, Nigeria, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Data were analyzed using inductive qualitative methodology. The study was undertaken among HCPs in two teaching hospitals in Ekiti State during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Convenience sampling techniques were employed to select participants for this study. A comprehensive interview ranging from 30 to 50 minutes per participant was administered to a sample of 14 HCPs (doctors and nurses) representing various departments within the hospital. The interviews were conducted between March 2020 and May 2020. COVID-19 stressful situations, the physiological consequences of stress, personality, disposition, stress management techniques, and coping mechanisms were evaluated.

Results

The study outcomes indicate that a significant proportion of HCPs currently face mental well-being. The primary sources of stress identified in this study included heavy workloads and pressure from social media platforms and government agencies. The outbreak crisis significantly influenced on their lives and work, with the fear of catching diseases and their anxiety about spreading infections to their loved ones.

Conclusions

HCPs require a secure working environment during the current circumstances, along with an enhanced support system to alleviate stressors. This study contributes to a significant proportion of HCPs currently facing stress.

Tensions experienced by case managers working in home care for older adults in Quebec: first level analysis of an institutional ethnography

BACKGROUND

Case managers play a vital role in integrating the necessary services to optimise health-related goals and outcomes. Studies suggest that in home care, case managers encounter tensions in their day-to-day work, that is, disjuncture between what they should do, in theory, and what they actually do, in practice. However, direct exploration of these tensions is lacking. As such, this study aimed to describe the tensions encountered by case managers in public home care for older adults in Quebec and their influence on day-to-day work.

METHODS

An institutional ethnography was conducted through observations of work, interviews and a survey with case managers working in home care in Quebec. Data were analysed using institutional ethnography first-level analysis procedures. This included mapping the work sequences as well as identifying the tensions experienced by case managers through the words they used.

RESULTS

Three main tensions were identified. First, case managers perceive that, despite working to return hospitalised older adults at home safely, their work also aims to help free up hospital beds. Thus, they often find themselves needing to respond quickly to hospital-related inquiries or expedite requests for home care services. Second, they are supposed to delegate the care to "partners" (e.g., private organisations). However, they feel that they are in effect managing the quality of the services provided by the "partners." Consequently, they go to great lengths to ensure that good care will be provided. Finally, they must choose between meeting organisational requirements (e.g., reporting statistics about the work, documenting information in the older adults' file, doing mandatory assessments) and spending time providing direct care. This often leads to prioritising direct care provision over administrative tasks, resulting in minimal reporting of essential information.

CONCLUSION

The results are discussed using the three lenses of professional practice context analyses (i.e., accountability, ethics, and professional-as-worker) to formulate recommendations for practice and research. They suggest that, despite their important role, case managers have limited power in home care (e.g., with partners, with the hospital).

Determinants of the managerial staff's disposition towards e-payment platforms in public tertiary hospitals in Enugu, Nigeria: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Many Nigerians pay out-of-pocket for their health care, and some hospitals have started utilising e-payment systems to increase transactional efficiency. The study investigated the type and usage of e-payment platforms in public hospitals and the factors that may influence the managerial staff's disposition towards using the e-payment system.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 300 managerial staff within the four public tertiary hospitals in Enugu, Nigeria, through proportionate quota sampling. The survey obtained participants' demographic characteristics, types of e-payment platforms, managerial staff's technophobia, perception of credibility, and disposition towards e-payment. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation, and hierarchical linear regression.

RESULTS

The majority of the respondents (n = 278, 92.7% completion rate) aged 43.4 ± 7.6 years were females (59.0%) with a bachelor's degree (54.7%). Their disposition (80.0%±17.9%), perceptions of the usefulness (85.7 ± 13.9%), and user-friendliness (80.5 ± 18.1%) of e-payment in the hospital were positive, credibility (72.6 ± 20.1%) and technophobia (68.0 ± 20.7%) were moderate. There was a negative correlation between technophobia and disposition toward the use of e-payment (ρ = -0.50, P < 0.001). Significant multivariate predictors of managerial disposition towards e-payment were; being a woman (β = 0.12, P = 0.033), married (β = 0.18, P = 0.003), positive perception of usefulness (β = 0.14, P = 0.025), and credibility (β = 0.15, P = 0.032).

CONCLUSION

Most participants had a positive disposition towards e-payment in public hospitals. However, managers with technophobia, a negative perception of e-payment usefulness, and credibility had a lesser disposition to its use. To ensure the universal implementation of e-payment in Nigerian hospitals, the service providers should make the e-payment platforms more secure and user-friendly to health services consumers and providers.

Perceived strategies for reducing staff-turnover and improving well-being and retention among professional caregivers in Alberta's continuing-care facilities: A qualitative study

This qualitative study explored potential factors that lead to turnover and absenteeism and how to improve well-being and retention among professional older-adult-caregivers in Alberta's assisted living (AL) and long-term care (LTC) facilities. Four hundred and forty-seven participants aged 45-54 years were interviewed through a five-item, content-validated open-ended questionnaire. The questionnaire was self-administered in the English language and the soft copy of their responses was transferred into NVIVO version 12 software for coding. A thematic narrative analysis grounded in the "happy productive worker" theory was completed. The main themes were caregivers' perception of the factors affecting their well-being, absenteeism, and turnover, and caregivers' suggestions on ways to improve their well-being and retention. Participants reported that their professional well-being was suboptimal. They suggested that their employers should provide them with the needed social, psychological, and professional support, improve wages and hire more staff to ameliorate absenteeism and turnover rates.