Developing and testing a measure of COVID-19 Organizational Support of Healthcare Workers – Results from Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia

Resumen

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers work under high workload with resource constraints and virus exposure, and hence the support to healthcare workers is crucial to lower anxiety. Based on a recently published 8-point framework of COVID-19 specific organization support, we deducted a measure of COVID-19 Organizational Support (COVID-OS) of healthcare workers. We tested the new measure with 712 healthcare workers in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru from April 10th to May 2nd, 2020. Our studies suggest the new measure of COVID-19 Organizational Support (COVID-OS) formed 3 factors to predict healthcare workers’ anxiety and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Personal support and work support each predicted anxiety at different levels. Risk support did not play a significant role in our sample. We call further studies testing the COVID-OS in other countries and settings.