A Mixed-Methods Study of Risk Factors and Experiences of Health Care Workers Tested for the Novel Coronavirus in Canada
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Abstract
The aims of this study were to investigate occupational and non–work-related risk factors of coronavirus disease 2019 among health care workers (HCWs) in Vancouver Coastal Health, British Columbia, Canada, and to examine how HCWs described their experiences.
Methods
This was a matched case-control study using data from online and phone questionnaires with optional open-ended questions completed by HCWs who sought severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 testing between March 2020 and March 2021. Conditional logistic regression and thematic analysis were utilized.
Results
Providing direct care to coronavirus disease 2019 patients during the intermediate cohort period (adjusted odds ratio, 1.90; 95% confidence interval, 1.04 to 3.46) and community exposure to a known case in the late cohort period (adjusted odds ratio, 3.595%; confidence interval, 1.86 to 6.83) were associated with higher infection odds. Suboptimal communication, mental stress, and situations perceived as unsafe were common sources of dissatisfaction.
Conclusions
Varying levels of risk between occupational groups call for wider targeting of infection prevention measures. Strategies for mitigating community exposure and supporting HCW resilience are required.
Article activity feed
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.04.21267231: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: The study protocol was approved by the University of British Columbia Behavioural Research Ethics Board (H20-02517)
Consent: With this date and their personal health number—which they supplied as part of the consent process—their test results were extracted from VCH laboratory records.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Qualitative analysis: De-identified free-text responses from the questionnaires were exported to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for coding and analysis. Microsoft Excelsuggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)Results from OddPub: We …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.04.21267231: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: The study protocol was approved by the University of British Columbia Behavioural Research Ethics Board (H20-02517)
Consent: With this date and their personal health number—which they supplied as part of the consent process—their test results were extracted from VCH laboratory records.Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Qualitative analysis: De-identified free-text responses from the questionnaires were exported to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for coding and analysis. Microsoft Excelsuggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Limitations: Respondents self-selected into the study. Consequently, participants could be systematically different from HCWs who chose not to participate. Our findings, however, are consistent with the result of our group’s previous study14 among VCH HCWs who comprised more than 80% of the respondents in this study. Secondly, in case-control studies, there is potential of differential recall between cases and controls. The method of generation of qualitative data we adopted is a third limitation as the use of optional free-text questions precluded full in-depth interviews. That, however, was not a major objective of this study, and more rigorous exploration of the themes generated would require a separate study.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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