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 Apr-Jun;104(2):368504211003775.
doi: 10.1177/00368504211003775.

Attitudes and beliefs of Spanish healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic

Borja Nicolás Santana López  1 , Yeray G Santana-Padilla  2 , Jesús M González-Martín  3 , Luciano Santana-Cabrera  1
Affiliations

Attitudes and beliefs of Spanish healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic

Borja Nicolás Santana López et al. Sci Prog. 2021 Apr-Jun.

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals are taking the risk of becoming infected or infecting their families. Spain is the country with the highest number of infected healthcare professionals worldwide. Our aim was to study the attitudes and beliefs of these professionals during the current pandemic. Descriptive study conducted by using an online questionnaire-based on an earlier one-which was sent to healthcare professionals at the national level, during the week March 20-27, 2020. Healthcare professionals returned 971 completed questionnaires. A total of 803 (82.7%) participants thought that they did not have suitable PPEs (Personal Protective Equipment) to protect them from infection with COVID-19. In addition, even 229 (23.58%) agreed to go on working even if they were not. In spite of this, 606 (62.4%) of them were ready to work, even with a higher-than-usual risk of becoming infected at work and getting ill. Remarkably high professional commitment has been observed among Spanish healthcare workers in the current pandemic. They were ready to work even when many of them considered that they did not have suitable PPEs, and were thus taking a higher than usual infection risk. However, they put the health of their relatives before their duties at work.

Keywords: COVID-19; Pandemics; attitude. (Source: MeSH NLM); coronavirus infections; health personnel.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

    1. Zhang Z, Liu S, Xiang M, et al. Protecting healthcare personnel from 2019-nCoV infection risks: lessons and suggestions. Front Med 2020; 14(2): 229–231. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Schwartz J, King C-C, Yen M-Y.Protecting healthcare workers during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak: lessons from Taiwan’s severe acute respiratory syndrome response. Clin Infect Dis 2020; 71(5): 858–860. - PMC - PubMed
    1. The Lancet. COVID-19: protecting health-care workers. Lancet 2020; 395: 922. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhou P, Huang Z, Xiao Y, et al. Protecting Chinese healthcare workers while combating the 2019 novel coronavirus. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2020; 41(6): 745–746. - PMC - PubMed
    1. European Centre for Disease prevention and Control. Infection prevention and control for COVID-19 in healthcare settings- Third update. Stockholm, https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/infection-prevention-and... (accessed 25 May 2020).

LinkOut - more resources