COVID-19 crisis overshadowing the health workforces’ rights and resilience: a systematic review

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHRH-12-2021-0212
• Published date: 24 June 2022
• Date: 24 June 2022
• Pages: 477-488
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Inequalities & diverse/minority groups,Sociology,Race & ethnic studies,Minorities,Multiculturalism,Racial identity,Work,economy & organizations
• Author: Omid Khosravizadeh,Bahman Ahadinezhad,Sima Rafiei,Rohollah Kalhor,Aisa Maleki

COVID-19 crisis overshadowing the health

workforces’rights and resilience: a

systematic review

Omid Khosravizadeh, Bahman Ahadinezhad, Sima Rafiei, Rohollah Kalhor and Aisa Maleki

Abstract

Purpose –In the time of the COVID-19 crisis, manyphysical, psychological and spiritual difficultiesare

imposedon the front line staff and overshadow their rights,resilience and retention. In addition, the lossof

this important organizational resource imposes huge costs on the system.The purpose of this study is

systemic review of the influential factors, policies and strategies applied to defend the rights of health-

care staff and improve the resilience and retention of health system human resources inthe COVID-19

crisis.

Design/methodology/approach –This systematic reviewwas conducted in 2021. Data were collected

by keyword search inGoogle Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Magiran, SID

and Irandoc databases until December 2021. In addition, the quality of the studies was evaluated by

three experts using the Strobe checklist. The analysis used in this study to categorize the results was

thematicanalysis.

Findings –Factors that causetension and injustice to employees and also strategiesto overcome it and

increase their resilience were classified into general categories according to their nature. Factors

included factors related to safety, economic and financial, staff characteristics, crisis management

characteristics, organizational climate and working conditions. Existing strategies also fall into four

categories of physical, psychological and spiritual health promotion strategies; organizational climate

and work environment;education and empowerment and economicand financial.

Originality/value –This study is a systematicreview of the factors that affect the healthworkforce rights

and resilience of health-carepersonnel during the COVID-19 crisis. On the other hand, the policies and

strategiesused in different countries to overcome the difficultiesand increase the resilience and retention

of healthworkers have been summarized and canbe used in other crises.

Keywords COVID-19, Health care, Health-care staff, Retention, Resilience, Sars-cov-2

Paper type Literature review

Introduction

The important role of health workers in delivering optimal health services to patients has

highlighted the necessity to pay close attention to their physical and psychological needsin

the workplace, particularly during the pandemics (Elarabi and Johari, 2014). The role of

health manpower is so great that countrieswith higher labor rates have lower mortality rates.

For example, the COVID-19 mortality rate in Germany, as a country with a high nursing

density, is significantly lower than other countries (Padula and Davidson, 2020). On the

other hand, this crisis threatens the health system from various aspects; it diminishes the

employees’ performance, increases workload and psychological burnout among staff,

causes discrimination and hostility in the workplace, and consequently, loses the rights of

health workers and breaks their resilience(Dirani et al.,2020;Faeth and Kittler, 2017). In the

COVID-19 crisis time, the health workforces face difficultiesincluding a lack of vision for the

future, lack of job opportunities, work-life imbalance, stressful work relationships and

Received 4 January 2022

Revised 21 May 2022

Accepted 21 May 2022

Funding: The authors did not

receive any funding to compile

and/or publish this review.

Authors’ contributions:OM

contributed to the concept and

design of the study. BA

contributed to the analysis and

interpretation of the data. SR,

RK and AM contributed to the

critical revision of the article

and writing of the manuscript.

All authors have read and

approved the final manuscript.

Declarations.

Ethics approval and consent to

participate.

The present study was

approved by ethical committee

of Qazvin University of Medical

Sciences (ethics code: IR.

QUMS.REC.1399.500).

Competing interests.

There are no conflicts of

interest.

DOI 10.1108/IJHRH-12-2021-0212 VOL. 15 NO. 5 2 022, pp. 477-488, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2056-4902 jINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN HEALTHCARE jPAGE 477