Shifting Professional Identity Among Indonesian Medical Practitioners During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on medical practitioners' professional identities due to its novelty and intensity. Using constructivist grounded theory, we investigated how the COVID-19 pandemic shifted individuals' identities as medical practitioners in Indonesia, where the pandemic caused high death rates among healthcare workers, particularly medical practitioners. By interviewing 24 medical practitioners and analyzing relevant documents and reports, we developed a grounded theory of professional identity shifts. We found two patterns: (1) identity growth, in which the medical practitioners thrive and claimed stronger professional identities, and (2) psychological and moral distress leading to attrition, facilitated adaptation, or professional identity collapse. We also found several primary protective factors including religious beliefs, good leadership, team cohesion, healthy work boundaries, connection to significant others, and public acknowledgment. Without adequate protective factors, medical practitioners experienced difficulties redefining their professional identities. To cope with the situation, they focused on different identities, took some time off, or sought mental health support, resulting in facilitated adaptation. Others resorted to attrition or experienced professional identity collapse. Our findings suggest that medical practitioners' experience of professional identity shifts can be improved by providing medical practitioners with opportunities for knowledge updates, better organizational leadership and work boundaries, strategies to enhance team cohesion, and other improvements to medical systems.

Determining Anxiety Disorder in Health Workers who have received COVID-19 Vaccines: A Cross-Sectional Study at Public Health Centers in Tegal District, Indonesia

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has a major impact on health workers’ mental health. Health workers in Indonesia have received COVID-19 vaccines to get protection against COVID-19 infection and reduce anxiety while on duty. AIM: This study aims to determine anxiety disorder in health workers at public health centers who have received COVID-19 vaccines. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted at six public health centers in Tegal district, Indonesia. Data were collected using questionnaire that given to health workers who had vaccinated COVID-19. Anxiety disorder was determined with generalized anxiety disorder-7 (GAD-7) questionnaire. RESULTS: There were 137 samples who participated in this study, consisted of 83.2% of women and 16.8% of men. The majority of the samples were 30−39 years old (41.6%), married (93.4%), and midwife (44.5%). There were 6.6% of samples had mild anxiety and others were normal (93.4%). CONCLUSION: COVID-19 vaccination program for health workers can reduce anxiety when providing health services. However, assistance is still needed for health workers who have mild anxiety disorder to prevent prolonged symptoms and more severe mental health condition.

Being COVID Warriors among COVIGNORANTS in Indonesia: The Importance of Mental Health Endurance

COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has spread across the globe. COVID-19 cases keep increasing as July 04, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announce about 11,046,917 confirmed cases of COVID-19 that spread in 216 countries. The WHO has published helpful advice to keep and reduce the chances of being infected or spreading COVID-19 among the public such as cleaning hands regularly, maintaining physical distance, wearing masks properly, and encouraging to be in a ventilated area. An idiom for a person who ignores measures to prevent COVID-19 spread acts as if the world is not in the pandemic condition that is COVIGNORANT. Some of the COVIGNORANTS do not trust healthcare workers and spread a lot of false myths regarding COVID-19. Misperception and lack of knowledge about COVID-19 among COVIGNORANS lead to a sense of fear for healthcare workers. People are being a concern regarding contagion exposure from healthcare workers when they come home. Normalizing mental health discussion among healthcare workers should not be a stigma and must be considered one of the important policies that need to be applied among healthcare workers in Indonesia.