Medo da COVID-19 em tempos de pandemia entre trabalhadores da saúde de Vitória da Conquista-BA

Abstract

In December 2019, China reported to who cases of a pneumonia-like illness caused by the Coronavirus virus, a disease that was named COVID-19. It has spread throughout the world by exponential growth, having been declared in March 2020 by the who as a pandemic. Health workers were exposed daily to occupational risks and, above all, to feelings of fear, stigmatization, which impacts their quality of life. This reality reflects an urgent need to think about the health of workers, especially at the time of a pandemic for those professionals who are working on the front lines of fighting the disease. In addition to the concrete fear of dying, COVID-19 has several implications, which we can mention: family disorganization, social isolation, change in work routines, among others. Given the relevance of the topic and its implications for public health in Brazil and worldwide, this study sought to adapt and apply an already validated instrument on Fear of COVID-19, among health professionals who worked with suspected or confirmed cases of the disease in a municipality in the southwest of Bahia. A methodological study was carried out using a cross-sectional and multicenter study entitled: "Occupational Health among health workers in times of COVID-19". Three questionnaires were used. In the 1st stage, questions related to socio-economic and demographic conditions, alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption, general health questionnaire (QSG), quality of life (SF-12) and stigma in the health of the worker (EMIC STIGMA SCALE); in the 2nd stage, questions related to spirituality (WHOQOL-SRPB), the binomial effort and reward at work (ERI), in addition to the practice of physical activity (IPAQ) were investigated; then, the 3rd stage dealt with issues of biosafety and fear of COVID-19 (EMC-19). The psychometric analysis was performed from the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with satisfactory KMO values, and the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) obtaining values of χ2/gl = 1.949; CFI = 0.957; GFI = 0.592; RMSEA = 0.111 and TLI = 0.830, confirming that it is a structure with satisfactory results. The instrument entitled “Fear of COVID-19 (EMC-19)” showed validity, reliability and internal consistency, which enables its use for satisfactory assessments of fear of COVID-19 and can be used to assess fear of COVID-19 in research and or in health care services. In addition to providing subsidies to managers to adopt prevention measures against the fear of COVID-19.