Avicenna - Current Issue

Background Worldwide, office employees have experienced two novel phenomena during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown: working from home and reductions in their salaries. These phenomena have majorly impacted the lives of individuals as well as their families. The present study aims to measure the perceived stress levels among employees during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Pakistan.

Methodology A cross-sectional approach was used to collect data from a sample of 385 employees working in three different IT-oriented private organizations. A semi-structured, Likert-scale questionnaire was used, containing the 10-item inventory from the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). A sociodemographic profile, working parameters, and frequency of PSS inventory were presented in the descriptive analysis. Binary logistic regression analysis was made to compare the stress levels of the two groups resulting from their workloads and reductions in salary.

Results An elevated perceived stress level (50.9%) was observed among the employees, showing a significant relationship with salary reduction and home work engagement (p<0.005). A strong negative correlation was observed (-0.860) for the salary reduction with PSS.

Conclusion Working from home and reductions in salary caused increased perceived stress levels of the employees working in private organizations. Salary reductions proved to be a strong stressor, causing economic disruption and inability to cope with financial burdens during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hospitals and healthcare systems are instrumental in the formulation and delivery of a coordinated response to disaster management especially epidemics. In healthcare policy and strategy formation, there are only trade-offs, which with uncertainty are akin to gambles. National organizations play a key role in pandemics through the expression of physician motivation. Effective strategies can facilitate physician action through economies of scale that lower the costs for physicians to meet both community and patients' needs. Moreover, no matter how well clinicians are motivated and positioned to act, their collective actions are likely to fall short without complementary systems for population-based care that require the operational support of an organization. This review of institutional policy implementation and frameworks intends to highlight how a nodal-designated COVID-19 center in Qatar managed to control the menace by altering its procedural sets and work arrangements to augment an integrated, intrinsic response to a briskly emerging, conceivably complex situation. This outcome was achieved under the guidance of a national leadership team, effectively adapted to its specific challenges by building on current medical evidence, management routines, proficiencies, and health system capacity. This ambitious drive started with the cohesion of services and implementation of evidence-based protocols by assigning a physician-led team to research, strategize and organize improved patient flow and information by arranging analytical compliance and preparedness. Through these service approaches and ongoing efforts, HMGH has realized significant outcome improvements, such as increasing capacity building, reducing healthcare waste, and increasing patient satisfaction rates whilst successfully achieving significantly lower COVID-19 mortality both in terms of absolute numbers and as percent population compared to many developed countries in the world. The strategies outlined in this article might not be all-inclusive or fit other healthcare system models, but they generate a veritable interest to pursue and be subjected to further rigorous study.

As the Covid-19 pandemic persists, the public health interventions reported that many individuals during this pandemic situation experience different circumstances that lead to their poor mental health performance, such as isolation stress, anxiety, depression, anger, confusion, and unemployment. The aim of this study is to examine the existing literature in a comprehensive manner and to explore the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of UAE health workers. This study also examined the psychological factors that influence workers’ mental health due to the pandemic of COVID-19. An online questionnaire was administered to answer the research question. The results proved that the pandemic has affected both physical and mental health of UAE health workers. Consequently, the adoption of preventive actions at the governmental, organizational, and individual levels is highly recommended. In this research, the implementation of effective communication and the application of adequate psychological services have been suggested. To this end, the role of policy makers to be involved in placing governmental initiatives that prevent the spread of the virus and protect the mental health of workers has been highlighted.