A survey of UK healthcare workers' attitudes on volunteering to help with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa

Objective To understand the barriers and enablers for UK healthcare workers who are considering going to work in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but have not yet volunteered. Design After focus group discussions, and a pilot questionnaire, an anonymous survey was conducted using SurveyMonkey to determine whether people had considered going to West Africa, what factors might make them more or less likely to volunteer, and whether any of these were modifiable factors. Participants The survey was publicised among doctors, nurses, laboratory staff and allied health professionals. 3109 people answered the survey, of whom 472 (15%) were considering going to work in the epidemic but had not yet volunteered. 1791 (57.6%) had not considered going, 704 (22.6%) had considered going but decided not to, 53 (1.7%) had volunteered to go and 14 (0.45%) had already been and worked in the epidemic. Results For those considering going to West Africa, the most important factor preventing them from volunteering was a lack of information to help them decide; fear of getting Ebola and partners’ concerns came next. Uncertainty about their potential role, current work commitments and inability to get agreement from their employer were also important barriers, whereas clarity over training would be an important enabler. In contrast, for those who were not considering going, or who had decided against going, family considerations and partner concerns were the most important factors. Conclusions More UK healthcare workers would volunteer to help tackle Ebola in West Africa if there was better information available, including clarity about roles, cover arrangements, and training. This could be achieved with a well-publicised high quality portal of reliable information

Barriers and enablers to going to West Africa to help with the Ebola outbreak for four groups of respondents.

<p>The importance of each issue is indicated on a 5 point Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, for those who were considering going but had not yet decided (<i>“Considering”</i>); those who had not considered going (<i>“Not Considered”</i>); those who had considered it and decided not to go (<i>“Decided Against”</i>); those who had volunteered and were waiting to go (“<i>Volunteered</i>”), and those who had already been (“<i>Already Been</i>”). Issues marked * were introduced in the second version of the questionnaire from 22^nd October onwards (1450 responses). Data are the percentage of respondents giving the answers indicated; and the rank is indicated showing how important that issue was for that group. The values from which the figure is derived are given in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0120013#pone.0120013.s007" target="_blank">S1</a> and <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0120013#pone.0120013.s008" target="_blank">S2</a> Tables.</p

Current requirements indicated on the websites for organisations sending volunteers to work in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

<p>(The websites for Save the Children and UK-Med also indicate that they are recruiting volunteers, but we could find no indication of their requirements [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0120013#pone.0120013.ref024" target="_blank">24</a>–<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0120013#pone.0120013.ref028" target="_blank">28</a>]).</p><p>Current requirements indicated on the websites for organisations sending volunteers to work in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.</p

Triplot showing the relationships between barriers and explanatory variables for the group of health workers who are considering going to West Africa, but have not volunteered.

<p>Solid blue lines represent barriers; dashed grey lines show explanatory variables. Angles between variables represent their correlations. All the explanatory variables shown have a significant influence on the barriers. RDA 1 and 2 refers to the first two redundancy analysis axes. Circles indicate variables which remained closely correlated across all redundancy analysis axes (equivalent to rotating this figure through different dimensions) that represent significant variation in the dataset (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0120013#pone.0120013.s002" target="_blank">S1 Fig</a>. for plots of the 2^nd and 3^rd redundancy analysis axes). SSA experience = experience working in sub-Saharan Africa; previous experience = previous experience of Ebola; related experience = experience of a related transmissible haemorrhagic fever but not Ebola; professional experience = increasing years of experience since primary healthcare qualification. N = 321 respondents from both versions of the questionnaire. Analyses of the additional barriers added in the 2^nd version were conducted separately, but did not alter the correlations highlighted (data not shown).</p

Demographic information for all the respondents who completed the survey, divided according to the answer to whether they have considered going to West Africa to help in the current Ebola virus epidemic.

<p>Data are numbers (percent).</p><p>Demographic information for all the respondents who completed the survey, divided according to the answer to whether they have considered going to West Africa to help in the current Ebola virus epidemic.</p