What makes hospital staff ready to manage the COVID-19 pandemic? A psycho-social approach

Skills, commitment, and motivation of hospital workers are essential to cope with sanitary crisis (Barasa et al., 2018) such as COVID-19 pandemic. However, most research on the preparation of hospital workers for sanitary crisis shows a mismatch between their level of preparedness and their perceived preparedness and the estimated needs to manage these situations (Gowing et al., 2017; Labrague et al., 2018). In this context, it is crucial to understand how these individuals perceived their readiness to manage these situations and not only their preparedness level. Social psychology can provide clues for understanding the readiness perception (Mishra & Mazumdar, 2015). This study aims to explore hospital workers readiness perception to manage a sanitary crisis upcoming (COVID19 pandemic) and determinants of this perception. 408 French hospital workers respond to an online survey containing 11 items about COVID-19. Variables studied concern perception of personal preparedness, colleagues preparedness, and institutional preparedness. Results show that hospital workers have a relatively low readiness perception to manage COVID-19 before it came out. This study proposed a model explaining personal readiness perception to manage COVID-19, most important variables are: Colleague hospital service’s (β=.37***), personal preparation perception (β=.29***), perception of hospital human resources sufficient (β=.22**), perceived capacity for professional action (β=.097***), and perception of personal skills as sufficient ( β=.11**). These results show that personal preparedness is not enough to feel ready, there is other essential variables. This study shows that the perception of personal readiness is a complex process which deserves a psycho-social study combining individual and collective variables. For practice, these results suggest that the preparation must therefore be based on the collective and not only on the individual.