Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore.
NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Front Public Health. 2023 Jun 5;11:1178054. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1178054. eCollection 2023.
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant impact on all walks of life, in particular, environmental services workers in healthcare settings had higher workload, increased stress and greater susceptibility to COVID-19 infections during the pandemic. Despite extensive literature describing the impact of the pandemic on healthcare workers such as doctors and nurses, studies on the lived experiences of environmental services workers in healthcare settings are sparse and none has been conducted in the Asian context. This qualitative study thus aimed to examine the experiences of those who worked for a year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A purposive sample of environmental services workers was recruited from a major tertiary hospital in Singapore. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in-person, lasting around 30min, and included open-ended questions pertaining to five main domains: work experiences during COVID-19, training and education needs, resource and supplies availability, communication with management and other healthcare staff, and perceived stressors and support. These domains were identified based on team discussions and literature review. The interviews were recorded and transcribed for thematic analysis, as guided by Braun and Clarke.
A total of 12 environmental services workers were interviewed. After the first seven interviews, no new themes emerged but an additional five interviews were done to ensure data saturation. The analysis yielded three main themes and nine subthemes, including (1) practical and health concerns, (2) coping and resilience, and (3) occupational adaptations during the pandemic. Many expressed confidence in the preventive efficacy of proper PPE, infection control practice and COVID-19 vaccination in protecting them against COVID-19 and severe illness. Having prior experience with infectious disease outbreaks and previous training in infection control and prevention appeared to be useful as well for these workers. Despite the various challenges presented by the pandemic, they could still find meaning in their everyday work by positively impacting the wellbeing of patients and other healthcare workers in the hospital.
Besides uncovering the concerns shared by these workers, we identified helpful coping strategies, resilience factors and certain occupational adaptations, which have implications for future pandemic planning and readiness.
2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行对各行各业都产生了重大影响，特别是在大流行期间，医疗机构中的环境服务人员的工作量增加，压力增大，并且更容易感染 COVID-19。尽管有大量文献描述了大流行对医生和护士等医护人员的影响，但有关医疗机构环境服务人员生活经历的研究却很少，在亚洲也没有进行过此类研究。因此，这项定性研究旨在检查在 COVID-19 大流行期间工作了一年的人员的经历。
从新加坡一家主要的三级医院中选择环境服务人员进行了目的抽样。通过面对面进行半结构式访谈，每次持续约 30 分钟，并提出了与五个主要领域相关的开放性问题：COVID-19 期间的工作经历，培训和教育需求，资源和用品供应，与管理层和其他医护人员的沟通以及感知到的压力源和支持。这些领域是根据团队讨论和文献回顾确定的。采访进行了录音并转录，以进行主题分析，方法是根据 Braun 和 Clarke 的指导进行的。
共对 12 名环境服务人员进行了采访。在进行了前七次访谈之后，没有出现新的主题，但又进行了另外五次访谈以确保数据饱和。分析得出了三个主要主题和九个子主题，包括（1）实际和健康问题，（2）应对和韧性，以及（3）大流行期间的职业适应。许多人对适当的个人防护设备，感染控制实践和 COVID-19 疫苗在保护他们免受 COVID-19 和重病方面的预防效果充满信心。他们之前有过传染病爆发的经验，并且在感染控制和预防方面受过培训，这对他们也很有帮助。尽管大流行带来了各种挑战，但他们仍能在日常工作中找到意义，从而对医院中的患者和其他医护人员的福祉产生积极影响。
除了揭示这些工人共同关注的问题外，我们还确定了有用的应对策略，韧性因素和某些职业适应措施，这对未来的大流行规划和准备工作具有重要意义。
