School of Health, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.
School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.
Health Expect. 2024 Oct;27(5):e70050. doi: 10.1111/hex.70050.
Evidence examines how persons experiencing Long COVID (LC) struggle to secure healthcare for symptoms. However, few studies examine healthcare workers experiencing LC, nor the complex and multiple difficulties faced when seeking and receiving healthcare.
This study is based on two phases of longitudinally conducted qualitative interviews, 6 months apart, with National Health Service (NHS) workers experiencing LC, from different occupational roles at NHS locales in Scotland (first interviews, n = 50; second interviews, n = 44).
Multiple factors restricted healthcare access, including worries about pressuring the NHS and concerns over LC being legitimised. When healthcare was sought, workers struggled to secure support, referrals and treatment. The following reasons were included: (1) context: the restrictive pandemic healthcare context; (2) illness climate: low GP knowledge surrounding LC and how this could be treated, trends for ascribing symptoms to other causes and reluctance to diagnose LC; (3) sense-making of LC: healthcare availability linked to occupational role identity. To visualise and examine healthcare barriers, candidacy theory is applied, drawing inferences between healthcare context, illness climate, sense-making and identities.
NHS workers' complex journeys represent Disrupted Candidacy, intersecting challenges across candidacy domains, restricting the seeking and receiving of LC healthcare. Findings provide insights into why NHS workers resisted and withdrew from healthcare-seeking, and the barriers they faced when attempting to secure LC support. This study presents a pathway for future LC illness research to use a modified candidacy theory framework.
This research focuses on amplifying and learning from lived experiences, and the voices of NHS workers in Scotland experiencing LC. Interviews represent primary data for this study; thus, participants and their healthcare journeys are centred in this research and all aspects of production, reporting and output. Explicit discussions of stakeholder group involvement are highlighted in the methods section.
有证据表明，长期新冠（LC）患者在寻求医疗服务以治疗症状时遇到了困难。然而，很少有研究关注经历 LC 的医护人员，也很少有研究探讨他们在寻求和获得医疗服务时所面临的复杂和多重困难。
本研究基于两项纵向进行的定性访谈，时间间隔为 6 个月，参与者为苏格兰国家医疗服务体系（NHS）中经历 LC 的医护人员，分别来自 NHS 不同工作岗位（第一次访谈，n=50；第二次访谈，n=44）。
多种因素限制了医疗保健的获取，包括担心给 NHS 带来压力以及担心 LC 被合法化。当寻求医疗保健时，工作人员难以获得支持、转介和治疗。原因包括：（1）背景：疫情期间医疗保健受限的背景；（2）疾病气候：全科医生对 LC 的了解有限，以及如何治疗这种疾病，将症状归因于其他原因的趋势，以及不愿诊断 LC；（3）对 LC 的理解：医疗保健的可获得性与职业角色认同相关。为了可视化和检查医疗保健障碍，应用候选理论，从医疗保健背景、疾病气候、意义建构和身份等方面进行推理。
NHS 工作人员复杂的就医经历代表了候选资格的中断，候选资格领域的交叉挑战限制了 LC 医疗保健的寻求和接受。研究结果提供了 NHS 工作人员为何拒绝和放弃寻求医疗服务以及他们在试图获得 LC 支持时所面临的障碍的深入了解。本研究为未来的 LC 疾病研究提供了一个途径，使用修正后的候选理论框架。
本研究重点关注放大和学习 NHS 工作人员在苏格兰经历 LC 的生活经历和声音。访谈是本研究的主要数据来源；因此，参与者及其医疗保健经历是本研究的中心，所有生产、报告和输出的方面都以他们为中心。方法部分突出强调了利益相关者群体参与的各个方面。
