A qualitative study on diversity of psychological stress between the suburban & metropolitan field level health workers.

Abstract

Introduction: Urban front-level surveillance workers (HCWs) visited door-to-door to find out whether any residents had any symptoms of Covid 19 in both slums and non-slums of West Bengal.  This study aims to discover what type of problems HCWs face; their perception about why people are not responding or hiding their symptoms; what type of stigma they face & what type of response they get from their family members & neighbours.

Materials and methods: Three Focus Group Discussions (FGD) were conducted with 8 participants each, the sample size being 24. They were asked about their perception of different aspects per one FGD guide. The discussion was on local languages (Bengali and Hindi) which were audio recorded transcribed and translated into English. Data saturation was reached after 3 interviews.

Result: From inductive analysis, themes like ‘job responsibility’, ‘difficulty faced’ and ‘stigmatisation of community’, ‘response about symptoms’, and ‘stigma to HCW from neighbour & Family Member’. In theme 1, making the community aware of the Government's health system was uttered mostly. Health workers thought that most of the beneficiaries were hiding symptoms mainly due to the stigma faced by the neighbours. Human-to-human transmission probability is the reason behind stigma. Hostility faced in the community due to many grievances towards the authority was the main difficulty of HCWs.

Conclusion: Stigma regarding disease and grievances towards authority were the main causes of hostility faced by the health workers.