Health Pandemic and Experience of COVID-19 Infected Health Workers: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

ABSTRACT Due to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 disease, the world communities were faced extreme stress to deal with the pandemic. The World Health Organisation (WHO) was decided to declare COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. COVID-19 pandemic was brought extreme challenges on health workers including nurses and ward attendants’ work in the healthcare service. The objective of this study was to explored the impact on health workers of India. This study was conducted among nurses and ward attendants and they were known for their service through the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was included 20 respondents where 10 of them were nurses and the other 10 were ward attendants at the hospital. The interview method was used to collect the data, and the interviews were conducted between November 2020 and February 2021. The interviews were conducted over the phone. Data was analysed with the help of Graneheim’s qualitative content analytical approaches. This study found that health workers were faced anxiety, fear of death, social isolation, loss of hope about future, separation anxiety from family members, etc. They were faced with uncertainty of their own life and even family members due to higher death rate among health workers and also patients.