Challenges faced by “health care workers” during COVID-19: A narrative review

Abstract

The ability to handle life's challenges measures the strength of character. If we intend to rise through challenges, one has to be prepared for the change. A strong sense of duty among health-care workers (HCWs) was observed during COVID-19 pandemic when there was a high threat to their lives. We aimed to review the literature from PubMed, CENTRAL, Web of Science, and Google Scholar that describes the current situation and various challenges faced by the health-care providers and provides necessary recommendations that ensure health and well-being. It is believed that the findings of this study will be found useful by the government and higher agencies to formulate and implement new and better policies favoring and promoting the health-care workers. The obstacles that health-care practitioners are presently facing are far larger than those that they experience in their routine duties. Health-care personnel has a distinct and restricted responsibility to treat the COVID-19 epidemic, which can be traced back to a wide social compact and is firmly linked to specific reciprocal obligations that society owes to health-care providers. This article is organized into parts depending on the numerous sorts of obstacles that health-care employees experience, such as mental, physical, professional, spiritual, and vocational challenges. The existing and future levels of stress among HCWs are very concerning. As a result, immediate upskilling is essential, as many health-care providers believe they lack the knowledge and abilities needed to manage health concerns. However, it is critical to ensure that enough suitable resources are in place to assist HCWs throughout the pandemic's acute phase, as well as in the aftermath when demand will increase. A key rationale for investigating challenges faced by health-care workers is to strengthen our health system in every best possible way, also to strengthen the role of health-care workers by collection of their personal information COVID-19 related knowledge, personal health, nutrition, dietary supplementation, and job characteristics including psychological problem, work motivation, work pressure, physical abuse at work, conflicts, occupational hazards, length of working hours, communication challenges, language barriers, calm and composed behavior, and maintaining spiritual belief. The rationale will be based on the questionnaire including all types of challenges with multiple-choice questions discussing the problems faced during COVID-19.