Study of work-family conflict in nurses and physicians caring for patients with Covid 19: A cross-sectional descriptive study in 2020: An ethical challenge in the medical staff

Abstract

Introduction: Many nurses face the challenge of balancing their work and family roles. Nowadays, the Coronavirus pandemic has become a major concern among the people and the World Health Organization. The healthcare workers face more conflicts arising from work and family due to the number of shifts, hardship and long hours. The aim of this research is to study the work-family conflict for the nurses and doctors taking care of COVID-19 patients in Jahrom province. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in 2020 on 103 nurses and doctors who were in contact with COVID-19 patients, working in hospitals associated with Jahrom medical sciences university. The tools for gathering data in this study included two questionnaires with the subjects of demographic information and the work and family conflict. Data analysis was carried out by SPSS, version 21 plus descriptive and inferential statistical tests. Results: 16.5 percent of nurses and doctors had travelled during the Coronavirus pandemic and 42.2 percent of them had taken ethics courses. The average work-family conflict was 52.75 ± 13.96. The level of workfamily conflict was lower than the average (48.26%) in most cases. Regarding different aspects of workfamily conflict, the conflict level was higher than the average (56.84 ± 21.01), while the conflict level based on behavior (45.30±22.47 and pressure (43.33±23.72) was lower than the average. The workfamily conflict among the healthcare workers who had taken the ethics course was meaningfully lower that the others (P-value = 0.049), but there was no meaningful relationship between the other demographic variables and the work-family conflict (P-value < 0.05) Conclusion: The work-study conflict for nurses and doctors taking care of COVID-19 patients in Jahrom province is lower than average. The data achieved by this study can be a basis for the beginning of further research and having educational workshops for healthcare workers. This will also help the medical field decision-makers to have a more effective planning.