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. 2022 Jan-Dec:59:469580221139140.
doi: 10.1177/00469580221139140.

Reported Self-Efficacy of Health Educators During COVID-19

Brandye D Nobiling  1 , Deneen Long-White  1 , Ashley Petrolino  2
Affiliations

Reported Self-Efficacy of Health Educators During COVID-19

Brandye D Nobiling et al. Inquiry. 2022 Jan-Dec.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many public health professionals to take on new roles such as online teaching, communicating, and managing; serving on the frontlines of patient care; and serving as health education resource personnel. Researchers of this study posed the question: How has the pandemic impacted those who serve to help others? Seven aspects of self-efficacy in professional practice were examined via an online survey sent to health educators. Respondents were extremely confident communicating with their colleagues and supervisors (60%) and with students (51%), but only 19% were extremely confident in maintaining a work-life balance and 22% in managing personal and professional stress. Respondents reported being confident in all areas of responsibilities, overall, but they were most confident in Area 8 (ethics and professionalism) and least confident in Area 1 (assessing the needs and capacity of a community) since COVID-19. Findings imply a need for more professional development opportunities to foster professional and personal self-efficacy and to improve self-efficacy in needs assessment, leadership, and advocacy. Findings also show a need for workplace or state-based interventions to support resiliency and self-care among professionals who work to serve others.

Keywords: COVID-19; health educators; pandemic; professional practice; self-efficacy.

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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.

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