Preventing the next 'SARS' - European healthcare workers' attitudes towards monitoring their health for the surveillance of newly emerging infections: qualitative study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hospitals are often the epicentres of newly circulating infections. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at high risk of acquiring infectious diseases and may be among the first to contract emerging infections. This study aims to explore European HCWs' perceptions and attitudes towards monitoring their absence and symptom reports for surveillance of newly circulating infections.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A qualitative study with thematic analysis was conducted using focus group methodology. Forty-nine hospital-based HCWs from 12 hospitals were recruited to six focus groups; two each in England and Hungary and one each in Germany and Greece.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>HCWs perceived risk factors for occupationally acquired infectious diseases to be 1.) exposure to patients with undiagnosed infections 2.) break-down in infection control procedures 3.) immuno-naïvety and 4.) symptomatic colleagues. They were concerned that a lack of monitoring and guidelines for infectious HCWs posed a risk to staff and patients and felt employers failed to take a positive interest in their health. Staffing demands and loss of income were noted as pressures to attend work when unwell. In the UK, Hungary and Greece participants felt monitoring staff absence and the routine disclosure of symptoms could be appropriate provided the effectiveness and efficiency of such a system were demonstrable. In Germany, legislation, privacy and confidentiality were identified as barriers.</p> <p>All HCWs highlighted the need for knowledge and structural improvements for timelier recognition of emerging infections. These included increased suspicion and awareness among staff and standardised, homogenous absence reporting systems.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Monitoring absence and infectious disease symptom reports among HCWs may be a feasible means of surveillance for emerging infections in some settings. A pre-requisite will be tackling the drivers for symptomatic HCWs to attend work.</p

International Social Survey Programme: Work Orientations IV - ISSP 2015

Attitude towards work. Work orientation. Conflict and social exclusion. Subjective experience of job. Work satisfaction. Non-standard employment. Work life balance. Job and working flexibility. Human capital. Outcome of work. Employability, new job. Topics: work centrality (a job is just a way of earning money vs. would enjoy having a paid job even if the money is not needed); importance of selected demands of a job like job security, high income, etc. (work values); work life balance: willingness to give up good job opportunities for the benefit of the family; willingness to remain in a job that is not satisfying for the benefit of the family; conflict and social exclusion: experience of discrimination with regard to work, for instance when applying for a job; main reason for the discrimination; experience of harassment at the workplace by superiors or co-workers (for example bullying, physical or psychological abuse); solidarity and conflict with regard to trade unions (workers need strong trade unions to protect their interests vs. strong trade unions are bad for the country´s economy); preferred employment arrangements (full-time, part-time, less than 10 hours a week, no paid job at all); currently working for pay (employment status); preference for more work (and money) or for reduction in working hours (work longer hours and earn more money, work the same number of hours and earn the same money, or work fewer hours and earn less money); characteristics (social dimension) of own job; subjective experience of job: frequency of hard physical work and stressful work; non-standard employment: frequency of working at home during the usual working hours and working on weekends; job and working flexibility concerning starting and finishing times; non-standard employment: usual working schedule in the main job; job and working flexibility: organisation of daily work (free decision, decision within certain limits, no free decision); work life balance: difficult to take an hour off during working hours to take care of personal or family matters; demands of the job interfere with the family life and the demands of family life interfere with the job; human capital: usefulness of the abilities learned from past work experience for the present job; job training over the past twelve months to improve job skills; judgement on the relations between management and employees and the relations between workmates/ colleagues (working atmosphere); outcome of work: work satisfaction in the main job; identification with firm or organisation; occupational commitment (would change the present type of work for something different, proud of the present type of work); employability/ new job: expected difficulties in finding a new job at least as good as the current one; likeliness of job search in the next twelve months; worried about the possibility of losing own job; job and working flexibility: accepted concessions to avoid unemployment (acceptance of a job that requires new skills, acceptance of a lower paid position, acceptance of temporary employment, longer travel to reach the place of work, movement within the country, movement to a different country); existence of a side job in addition to the main job; earning from the additional job(s) in total compared with the main job. Respondents who are not currently employed were asked: ever worked for pay for one year or more; month and year the last paid job ended; work satisfaction in the last job; main reason for the end of last employment; interest in finding a paid job; expected difficulties in finding a new job; worried about the possibility of not finding a job; accepted concessions in order to get a job (acceptance of a job that requires new skills, acceptance of a lower paid position, acceptance of temporary employment, longer travel to reach the place of work, movement within the country, movement to a different country); job seeking activities in the past twelve months and training to improve own job skills; currently looking for a job; main source of economic support; worried about the possibility of losing this main economic support. Optional items: recent work histories: ever worked for pay over the past five years; experience of selected changes in working life (unemployment for a period longer than three months, change of the employer, change of the occupation, started own business/ became self-employed, took up an additional job); self-assessment of current financial situation; change of current financial situation compared to five years ago; expected financial situation in five years; attitude towards senior citizens´ work (good for the country´s economy, employed people aged 60 and over take jobs away from younger people). Optional background variable: self-assessment of physical and mental health. Additional compulsory background variable: age of the youngest child in the household. Demography: sex; age; year of birth; years in school; education (country specific); highest completed degree; work status; hours worked weekly; employment relationship; number of employees; supervision of employees; number of supervised employees; type of organisation: for-profit vs. non profit and public vs. private; occupation (ISCO-08); main employment status; living in steady partnership; union membership; religious affiliation or denomination (country specific); groups of religious denominations; attendance of religious services; top-bottom self-placement; vote in last general election; country specific party voted in last general election; party voted (left-right); self-assessed affiliation of ethnic group 1 and 2 (country specific); number of children; number of toddlers; size of household; earnings of respondent (country specific); family income (country specific); father´s and mother´s country of birth; marital status; place of living: urban – rural; region (country specific). Information about spouse/ partner on: work status; hours worked weekly; employment relationship; supervises other employees; occupation (ISCO-08); main employment status. Additionally encoded: respondent-ID number; date of interview (year, month, day); case substitution flag; mode of data collection; weight