Personal preparedness and self-protective measures of frontline health care workers

This project was based at Fasiuddin Khan Research Foundation in Bangladesh

Background

Frontline health care workers (FHCWs) face a number of safety concerns when providing services during the current COVID-19 pandemic, with a significant number catching the virus themselves.

As the pandemic escalates, there is a need to establish an effective, and socially and culturally sensitive, protection system to protect FHCWs.

There is a lack of research relating to low and middle-income country FHCWs’ perceived behaviour, including their understanding of personal preparation and self-protective measures in a pandemic.

There are particular needs exemplified by working in refugee settings of intense humanitarian crises.

There is currently no global information on how COVID-19 will impact refugee settings. FHCWs in these settings face exceptional challenges, working with limited resources, with a population who are fearful of external authority systems, and who have endured many atrocities.

Aim and impact

This project will explore the perceptions and feelings of a community of FHCWs (including doctors, nurses and community health workers) in Cox’s Bazar, about personal preparation and protective measures for FHCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study will provide essential information on how to establish and implement an effective, and socially and culturally sensitive, protection system for FHCWs – an urgent requirement as the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly escalates.

Key developments

• Project final report submitted.
• Paper is being prepared for the Lancet Global Health
• Presentations made in Bangladesh
• Health Sector Partners Meetings at Cox’s Bazar
• Bangladesh Newspaper article to be submitted
• An article for IAHPC News Bulletin
• An article for ehospice

Project data

Download the project Data Management Plan