Early impact of the spread of the novel coronavirus infection on medical, long-term care and welfare sites in Japan: A qualitative study

Abstract

Objectives

This study aimed to describe the structure of problems that occurred in the field of medical, long-term care and welfare under the unprecedented situation of the early stage of the spread of novel coronavirus.

Methods

We conducted the online interview from April to May in 2020, targeting 27 workers on medical, long-term care, and welfare sites. The semi-structured interview using an interview guide was conducted in a free-answer format. A verbatim record was created from the recorded interview content, and the text data was analyzed by qualitative content analysis.

Results

We extracted 126 types of the meaning unit and the following four themes. (1) anxiety and dissatisfaction with information deficiency and insufficient information sharing, (2) stress of medical workers due to the double burden of overwork and discrimination from society, (3) the measures against loneliness and poverty, and (4) difficulty in infection prevention measures.

Conclusion

Under the unprecedented situation in the early stage of novel coronavirus infection, shortages of highly reliable information as well as of medical materials were particularly serious. Preventive measures against stress for medical staff and the livelihood support for loneliness and poverty were found to be important.