Quality of life among health care workers with and without prior COVID-19 infection in Bangladesh

• Main Authors: Mahfil Ara Rahman (Author), Soumik Kha Sagar (Author), Koustuv Dalal (Author), Sabrina Yesmin Barsha (Author), Tasnim Ara (Author), Md Abdullah Saeed Khan (Author), Shuvajit Saha (Author), Tanjina Sarmin (Author), Mosharop Hossian (Author), Mohammad Hayatun Nabi (Author), Mohammad Lutfor Rahman (Author), Mohammad Delwer Hossain Hawlader (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: BMC, 2022-06-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

Abstract Background Health care workers have been facing difficulties in coping with the COVID-19 infection from the beginning. The study aimed to compare Quality of Life (QOL) among health care workers (HCWs) with and without prior COVID-19 disease. Methods This study was conducted from July 2020 to January 2021 among 444 HCWs. We randomly interviewed 3244 participants for our earlier nationwide survey from a list of COVID-19 positive cases after their recovery, and we found 222 HCWs among the respondents. We randomly chose 222 HCWs unaffected by COVID as a comparison group from our selected hospitals. We measured QOL using World Health Organization's WHOQOL-BREF tool. Physical, psychological, environmental, and social ties were the four areas assessed on a 5-point Likert scale where a higher score suggests better QOL. Due to pandemic restrictions, we used telephonic interviews for data collection. Results A higher QOL score was observed in HCWs with prior COVID-19 infection in all four domains than HCWs without previous COVID-19 conditions. Comorbidity was negatively associated with QOL scores of the physical (p = 0.001) and (p < 0.001) and psychological (p = 0.05, and (p < 0.05) domains for non-COVID and COVID-affected groups, respectively. Current smoking was significantly associated with lower psychological (p = 0.019) and environmental (p = 0.007) QOL scores among HCWs with prior COVID-19 infection. Hospitalization history due to COVID infection was a contributing factor for lower physical QOL scores (p = 0.048). Environmental (p = 0.016) QOL scores were significantly associated with the monthly income in the prior COVID-19 infection group, and physical scores were significantly associated (p = 0.05) with a monthly income in the non-COVID group. Conclusion Governmental and non-governmental stakeholders should focus on potentially modifiable factors to improve health care workers' quality of life.

Item Description

10.1186/s12913-022-08174-0
1472-6963