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
. 2023 Oct 5:12:e50306.
doi: 10.2196/50306.

Policies and Management Interventions to Enhance Health and Care Workforce Capacity for Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic: Protocol for a Living Systematic Review

Ana Paula Cavalcante de Oliveira  1 , Mariana Lopes Galante  1 , Leila Senna Maia  1 , Isabel Craveiro  2 , Alessandra Pereira da Silva  1 , Ines Fronteira  2   3 , Raphael Chança  4 , Paulo Ferrinho  2 , Mario Dal Poz  1
Affiliations

Policies and Management Interventions to Enhance Health and Care Workforce Capacity for Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic: Protocol for a Living Systematic Review

Ana Paula Cavalcante de Oliveira et al. JMIR Res Protoc. .

Abstract

Background: Countries and health systems have had to make challenging resource allocation and capacity-building decisions to promote proper patient care and ensure health and care workers' safety and well-being, so that they can effectively address the present COVID-19 pandemic as well as upcoming public health problems and natural catastrophes. As innovations are already in place and updated evidence is published daily, more information is required to inform the development and implementation of policies and interventions to improve health and care workforce capacity to address the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Objective: The objective of this protocol review is to identify countries' range of experiences with policies and management interventions that can improve health and care workers' capacity to address the COVID-19 pandemic response and synthesize evidence on the effectiveness of the interventions.

Methods: We will conduct a living systematic review of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies and gray literature (technical and political documents) published in English, French, Hindi, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish between January 1, 2000, and March 1, 2022. The databases to be searched are MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, SCOPUS, and Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature. In addition, the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Research Database and the websites of international organizations (International Labour Organization, Economic Co-operation and Development, and The Health System Response Monitor) will be searched for unpublished studies and gray literature. Data will be extracted from the selected documents using an electronic form adapted from the Joanna Briggs Institute quantitative and qualitative tools for data extraction. A convergent integrated approach to synthesis and integration will be used. The risk of bias will be assessed with Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools, and the certainty of the evidence in the presented outcomes will be assessed with the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation.

Results: The database and gray literature search retrieved 3378 documents. Data are being analyzed by 2 independent reviewers. The study is expected to be published by the end of 2023 in a peer-reviewed journal.

Conclusions: This review will allow us to identify and describe the policies and strategies implemented by countries and their effectiveness, as well as identify gaps in the evidence.

Trial registration: PROSPERO CRD42022327041; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=327041.

International registered report identifier (irrid): RR1-10.2196/50306.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; health and care workforce capacity; health and care workforce policy; management interventions; pandemic.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Coronavirus COVID-19 global cases. Johns Hopkins University. 2020. [2023-05-22]. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html .
    1. Third round of the global pulse survey on continuity of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic: interim report - November-December 2021. World Health Organization. 2022. Feb 7, [2023-09-08]. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-EHS_continuity-sur... .
    1. Mehta LS, Murphy DJ. Strategies to prevent burnout in the cardiovascular health-care workforce. Nat Rev Cardiol. 2021 Jul 16;18(7):455–456. doi: 10.1038/s41569-021-00553-0. https://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/33864029 10.1038/s41569-021-00553-0 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. The impact of COVID-19 on health and care workers: a closer look at deaths. World Health Organization. 2021. [2023-09-08]. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/345300 .
    1. de Oliveira APC, Dussault G, Craveiro I. Challenges and strategies to improve the availability and geographic accessibility of physicians in Portugal. Hum Resour Health. 2017 Mar 23;15(1):24. doi: 10.1186/s12960-017-0194-3. https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960... 10.1186/s12960-017-0194-3 - DOI - DOI - PMC - PubMed