Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare providers: save the frontline fighters.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare providers (HCPs) at personal and professional levels. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study. It was conducted using an electronic format survey through Qualtrics Survey Software in English. The target participants were HCPs working in any healthcare setting across Iraq. The survey was distributed via two professional Facebook groups between 7 April and 7 May 2020. The survey items were adopted with modifications from three previous studies of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Avian Influenza Outbreak. Kruskal-Wallis test was conducted to determine the difference in the pandemic impact according to the dealing with COVID-19 cases. KEY FINDINGS: The authors received 430 surveys from HCPs representing 14 provinces. Approximately 60% of the participants were dealing with diagnosis or treatment of COVID-19 cases. More than 80% perceived high risk of infection and stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, 85.9% of the HCPs had concerns of putting family and close friends at risk due to their job during the COVID-19 crisis. HCPs working in a setting dealing with diagnosis/treatment of COVID-19 cases experienced significantly higher concerns about personal and family safety compared with other HCPs. CONCLUSIONS: Working during COVID-19 pandemic has several negative impacts on HCPs including mental and physical health and an overwhelming work environment. Thus, social and emotional support is needed to help HCPs to cope with such stressful conditions. Finally, providing adequate PPE can help to minimise concerns of getting infected in the workplace.

Evaluating the use of informational technologies by students of healthcare colleges for academic purposes over a five-year period.

This study aimed to assess the extent to which healthcare students use five informational technologies for daily academic purposes and to examine the changes in student perceptions toward these technologies over five years. This was a cross-sectional descriptive study in 10 different colleges in seven governorates. We conducted a survey using the instruments developed from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The surveys were administered to convenience samples of students at the colleges of pharmacy, medicine, and dentistry in the participating universities. The survey was conducted three times over three different years: 2015, 2018, 2020. Five Information and Communication Technology components were included in the study: electronic course management (ECM), internet, computer, audio recording/commentary, and PowerPoint slides. The surveys were electronic and administered using Qualtrics Survey Software. For most respondents, the survey links were administered electronically via Facebook groups to convenience samples of students of the Bachelor programs. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to measure the difference among the three (years) surveys results. The multiple linear regression analysis was used to measure the associations between the five predictors of the TAM and the outcome variable (actual use of technology). There was a total of 3,113 valid surveys collected in 2015, 2018, and 2020. Nearly two thirds of participants were females. Most students did not have enough experience in using ECM before classes closure in March 2020. Lack of facilitating conditions and infrastructures like an expert technical support team and stable internet connections are negatively impacting students' acceptance of technology use in education. Moving from mainly face-to-face learning with partial electronic use in 2015 and 2018 to totally virtual learning in 2020 had a negative impact on the perceptions of healthcare college students of the five technologies across the five TAM domains (perceived usefulness, facilitating condition, ease of use, attitude toward use, intention to use) and the actual use of these technologies. The TAM successfully explained the factors influencing the actual use of technologies by healthcare college students. Continuing technical support and training can reduce students' electronic challenges. Technical status assessment needs to be done at the beginning, mid and end of the semester to evaluate the technical challenges facing students in online learning. The study tools are internationally adoptable to evaluate the student perceptions of the ICT implementation for research and academic annual assessment purposes.