Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Mar 17:14:1165-1173.
doi: 10.2147/RMHP.S288003. eCollection 2021.

Predictors of Health-Care Workers' Unwillingness to Continue Working During the Peak of COVID-19 in Western Ethiopia: An Extended Parallel-Process Model Study

Ashenafi Habte Woyessa  1 , Adugna Oluma  2 , Thanasekaran Palanichamy  3 , Birtukan Kebede  2 , Eba Abdissa  3 , Busha Gamachu Labata  4 , Tamirat Alemu  2 , Lamessa Assefa  5
Affiliations

Predictors of Health-Care Workers' Unwillingness to Continue Working During the Peak of COVID-19 in Western Ethiopia: An Extended Parallel-Process Model Study

Ashenafi Habte Woyessa et al. Risk Manag Healthc Policy. .

Abstract

Purpose: Willingness to work in disasters is context-specific and corresponds to the nature, magnitude, and threats posed by a particular public health emergency. None us is certain that our health professionals will continue to provide service should the COVID-19 pandemic crisis climb to its worst level. It was with this uncertainty in mind that this study was done to assess predictors of the unwillingness of health-care workers (HCWs) to continue providing their professional services during the climax of the COVID-19 crisis.

Methods: This was a facility-based descriptive cross-sectional study undertaken among 633 HCWsin western Ethiopia.

Results: Overall, 205 (32.4%) providers said that they would be unwilling to continue work if COVID-19 peaked. Of these, 176 (27.9%) respondents reported that they would stop going in to work before they were at greatest risk. Statistical analysis performed to predict HCWs unwillingness' to continue work at peak COVID-19 showed male sex (AOR 11.4, 95% CI 8.32-12.6), younger age (AOR 25.3, 95% CI 4.61-40.67), lack of experience in handling similar pandemics (AOR 5.15, 95% CI 1.1-255), and low perceived level of hospital preparedness (AOR 2.05, 95% CI 0.80-5.21) were predictors of unwillingness. In accordance with the extended parallel-process model, higher threat perception (P≤0.001) and low efficacy perception (P≤0.040) were associated with unwillingness of the HCWs to continue working.

Conclusion: The proportion of HCWs unwilling to continue their job during COVID-19 is sufficient to affect efforts tof fight the pandemic. As the question of whether our HCWs must risk themselves to treat COVID-19 patients does not have a uniform answer, working on predictors of potential unwillingness is of paramount importance.

Keywords: COVID-19; health-care workers; pandemic; unwillingness.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest for this work.

References

    1. UKEssays. Health care workers and pandemics social work essay. November, 2018. Available from: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/socialwork/health-care-workers-and-pande.... Accessed February27, 2021.
    1. WHO. Novel coronavirus–China. 2020. Available from: https://www.who.int/csr/don/12january-2020-novel-coronavirus-china/en. Accessed February27, 2021.
    1. Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, et al. A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med. 2020;382(8):727–733. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2001017 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Adhikari SP, Meng S, Wu YJ, et al. Epidemiology, causes, clinical manifestation and diagnosis, prevention and control of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during the early outbreak period: a scoping review, Adhikari et al. Infect Dis Poverty. 2020;9:29. doi:10.1186/s40249-020-00646-x - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sahin AR, Erdogan A, Mutlu Agaoglu P, Dineri Y, Cakirci AY, Senel ME. 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak: a review of the current literature. EJMO. 2020;4(1):1–7.