Quality of life among health care workers with and without prior COVID-19 infection in Bangladesh.
JSON
Rahman MA, Sagar SK, Dalal K, Barsha SY, Ara T, Khan MAS, Saha S, Sarmin T, Hossian M, Nabi MH, Rahman ML, Hawlader MDH
BMC Health Serv Res 22 (1) 823 [2022-06-25; online 2022-06-25]
Health care workers have been facing difficulties in coping with the COVID-19 infection from the beginning. The study aimed to compare Quality of Life (QOL) among health care workers (HCWs) with and without prior COVID-19 disease. This study was conducted from July 2020 to January 2021 among 444 HCWs. We randomly interviewed 3244 participants for our earlier nationwide survey from a list of COVID-19 positive cases after their recovery, and we found 222 HCWs among the respondents. We randomly chose 222 HCWs unaffected by COVID as a comparison group from our selected hospitals. We measured QOL using World Health Organization's WHOQOL-BREF tool. Physical, psychological, environmental, and social ties were the four areas assessed on a 5-point Likert scale where a higher score suggests better QOL. Due to pandemic restrictions, we used telephonic interviews for data collection. A higher QOL score was observed in HCWs with prior COVID-19 infection in all four domains than HCWs without previous COVID-19 conditions. Comorbidity was negatively associated with QOL scores of the physical (p = 0.001) and (p < 0.001) and psychological (p = 0.05, and (p < 0.05) domains for non-COVID and COVID-affected groups, respectively. Current smoking was significantly associated with lower psychological (p = 0.019) and environmental (p = 0.007) QOL scores among HCWs with prior COVID-19 infection. Hospitalization history due to COVID infection was a contributing factor for lower physical QOL scores (p = 0.048). Environmental (p = 0.016) QOL scores were significantly associated with the monthly income in the prior COVID-19 infection group, and physical scores were significantly associated (p = 0.05) with a monthly income in the non-COVID group. Governmental and non-governmental stakeholders should focus on potentially modifiable factors to improve health care workers' quality of life.
PubMed 35752784
DOI 10.1186/s12913-022-08174-0
Crossref 10.1186/s12913-022-08174-0
pii: 10.1186/s12913-022-08174-0
pmc: PMC9233781