Heyerdahl Leonardo W, Guillemot Vincent, Lana Benedetta, Bizel-Bizellot Gaston, Giles-Vernick Tamara
Anthropology & Ecology of Disease Emergence Unit, Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, 25-28 Rue du Dr Roux, Paris, 75015, France.
Bioinformatics and Biostatistics Hub, Computational Biology Department, Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Paris, 75015, France.
BMC Public Health. 2025 Apr 7;25(1):1305. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-22406-y.
Non-governmental organizations support state-based responses to health emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Their capacity to respond effectively to such emergencies depends on worker and volunteer willingness to engage in high-risk conditions. Some studies examine volunteer and salaried worker motivation to continue in high-risk situations, but offer limited insight into how workers themselves understand and act on workplace cultures, governance, risks, and care work, as well as their consequences for motivation to continue. This study investigated drivers of motivation to continue and appraisals of the value of care work among French Red Cross (FRC) personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020-2021.
We conducted online quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews. We used a novel analytical approach employing unsupervised clustering with BERTopic-a transformer-based language model-for analyzing open-text survey responses. This method, alongside descriptive statistics and multivariate analyses, illuminated underlying themes in participants' intentions to continue care work. Thematic analyses situated these intentions within broader discussions about FRC work culture and the value of care work during a pandemic.
Analysis of responses from 2,460 online surveys and 40 online interviews revealed a decrease in the proportion of salaried workers expressing an intention to continue, whereas the proportion among volunteers remained stable across surveys conducted between June 2020 and June 2021. Multivariate analysis linked declining motivation to continue with heightened anxious state and increased motivation to continue with perceived readiness and in-person communication. Qualitative findings reframed our question about FRC actor motivation to continue. "Motivation to continue", whether declining or intensifying, reflected a rethinking of care work. For some, remote work sapped their care work of its value. Others perceived their labor to have high value and thus worked beyond their physical and emotional capacities.
Although anxious state and risk perceptions influenced FRC actor motivation to continue during the COVID-19 pandemic, this motivation to continue must be understood in a context of changing values of voluntary and salaried care work that sustain the health and wellbeing of a population. Studies of future health emergencies could extend this reasearch to yield greater insight into sociocultural and political economic logics that sustain care work.
非政府组织支持各国应对卫生紧急情况，包括新冠疫情。它们有效应对此类紧急情况的能力取决于工作人员和志愿者在高风险条件下参与工作的意愿。一些研究考察了志愿者和受薪工作人员在高风险情况下继续工作的动机，但对于工作人员自身如何理解工作场所文化、治理、风险和护理工作，以及这些因素对他们继续工作动机的影响，提供的见解有限。本研究调查了2020 - 2021年新冠疫情期间法国红十字会（FRC）工作人员继续工作的动机驱动因素以及对护理工作价值的评估。
我们开展了在线定量调查和定性访谈。我们采用了一种新颖的分析方法，即使用基于变压器的语言模型BERTopic进行无监督聚类，以分析开放式文本调查回复。该方法与描述性统计和多变量分析一起，揭示了参与者继续从事护理工作意图中的潜在主题。主题分析将这些意图置于关于FRC工作文化和疫情期间护理工作价值的更广泛讨论之中。
对2460份在线调查和40次在线访谈的回复分析显示，表达继续工作意愿的受薪工作人员比例有所下降，而在2020年6月至2021年6月期间进行的各项调查中，志愿者中表达继续工作意愿的比例保持稳定。多变量分析表明，继续工作动机下降与焦虑状态加剧有关，而继续工作动机增加与感知准备情况和面对面交流有关。定性研究结果重新审视了我们关于FRC工作人员继续工作动机的问题。“继续工作的动机”，无论是下降还是增强，都反映了对护理工作的重新思考。对一些人来说，远程工作削弱了他们护理工作的价值。另一些人则认为自己的工作具有很高价值，因此工作超出了身体和情感承受能力。
尽管焦虑状态和风险认知在新冠疫情期间影响了FRC工作人员继续工作的动机，但这种继续工作的动机必须在维持人群健康和福祉的志愿和受薪护理工作价值观不断变化的背景下加以理解。对未来卫生紧急情况的研究可以扩展这项研究，以更深入地了解维持护理工作的社会文化和政治经济逻辑。
