The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Czech social workers on the frontline

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60162694%3AG44__%2F25%3A00563545" target="_blank" >RIV/60162694:G44__/25:00563545 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://mmsl.cz/artkey/mms-202403-0001_the-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-czech-social-workers-on-the-frontline.php" target="_blank" >https://mmsl.cz/artkey/mms-202403-0001_the-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-czech-social-workers-on-the-frontline.php</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.31482/mmsl.2023.030" target="_blank" >10.31482/mmsl.2023.030</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Czech social workers on the frontline

Original language description

Many biological agents are epidemic or pandemic in nature (Ebola 2013, Spanish influenza 1918, Russian influenza 1989, SARS-CoV-2 2019). Recognising the onset of the spread of epidemics and pandemics remains a major challenge even in the 21st century despite the technologies and scientific knowledge at our disposal, as is the successful management of such situations. The reason concerns the existence of biological diversity and the laws that govern it, which are very difficult to predict and which are virtually uncontrollable. It is gradually becoming apparent that the current spread of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 (9 million deaths since the beginning of the pandemic according to WHO) is characterised by very different characteristics (e.g. the exposure, transmission and spread of the viral infectious agent) in different populations and risk groups.Social services workers in the Czech Republic have been on the frontline for the duration of the pandemic and have been required to work in a high-risk infectious environment. This has led to the need for changes in their established working practices and approaches. Considerable creativity had to be employed particularly in the first year of the pandemic due to the scarcity of information on the new viral agent, the availability of which increased only slowly as the scientific community studied and analysed the various factors involved. Globally, the scientific community released its experimental data as soon as it became available; however, unfortunately, due to the nature of biomedical research, the release of the outputs failed to match the time requirements for their necessity in practice. Based on qualitative and quantitative research, the following text provides an analysis of the specific measures and the related difficulties, and the struggle to find solutions, that providers of selected types of social services faced during the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey results revealed that the issues in question had a common thread across the various types of social services, as well as a number of common features and challenges. The analysis of the results showed a noticeable shift between the initial period, which was characterised by the rapid onset of the spread of the pandemic, and the situation after 18 months of life under pandemic conditions, which was characterised by the lower incidence of problems and difficulties. One of the major outcomes of the study concerns the identification of the need for social service providers to be provided with a unified, clear and centrally managed process that is able to provide individualised methodological support. The results are based on a study conducted as part of "The Changes in Selected Social Services for People with Disabilities during the State of Emergency Instigated by a Viral Disease" project.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_ost - Miscellaneous article in a specialist periodical

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10607 - Virology

Project

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Continuities

V - Vyzkumna aktivita podporovana z jinych verejnych zdroju

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Military Medical Science Letters (MMSL)

ISSN

0372-7025

e-ISSN

2571-113X

Volume of the periodical

93

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC

Number of pages

5

Pages from-to

232-246

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

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