INTRODUCTION: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had an unprecedented impact in Asia and has placed significant burden on already stretched healthcare systems. We examined the impact of COVID-19 on the safety attitudes among healthcare workers (HCWs), as well as their associated demographic and occupational factors, and measures of burnout, depression and anxiety. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey study utilising snowball sampling was performed involving doctors, nurses and allied health professions from 23 hospitals in Singapore, Malaysia, India and Indonesia between 29 May 2020 and 13 July 2020. This survey collated demographic data and workplace conditions and included three validated questionnaires: the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ), Oldenburg Burnout Inventory and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. We performed multivariate mixed-model regression to assess independent associations with the SAQ total percentage agree rate (PAR). RESULTS: We obtained 3,163 responses. The SAQ total PARs were found to be 35.7%, 15.0%, 51.0% and 3.3% among the respondents from Singapore, Malaysia, India and Indonesia, respectively. Burnout scores were highest among respondents from Indonesia and lowest among respondents from India (70.9%-85.4% vs. 56.3%-63.6%, respectively). Multivariate analyses revealed that meeting burnout and depression thresholds and shifts lasting ≥12 h were significantly associated with lower SAQ total PAR. CONCLUSION Addressing the factors contributing to high burnout and depression and placing strict limits on work hours per shift may contribute significantly towards improving safety culture among HCWs and should remain priorities during the pandemic.
Humans ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Pandemics ; COVID-19/epidemiology* ; Burnout, Psychological ; Health Personnel

Assessing the Anaesthetic Time on Operation Theatre Utilisation and Case Cancellation The time to perform an anaesthesia-related procedure at induction and emergence is often overlooked as part of the operation theatre (OT) utilisation time. This prospective observational study aimed to assess the estimation done by the surgeons and anaesthetists on anaesthesia times and the overall OT utilisation in our centre. This prospective observational study included elective cases from 13 surgical disciplines. The trainees, specialists and consultants from surgical and anaesthesia teams estimated the anaesthesia times separately before the surgical procedures. The actual anaesthesia, surgical, total procedural and turnover durations taken to complete the cases were documented. Operation theatre utilisations of those various surgical disciplines involved in the study were also analysed. We analysed 128 elective cases. The average mean time spent for anaesthesia procedures was 28.4 ± 14.1 min, with the mean induction time was 16.0 ± 9.8 min and the mean emergence time was 12.5 ± 8.6 min. Both anaesthetists and surgeons overestimated the anaesthetic times, but anaesthetists estimated closer to the actual anaesthetic times (r = 0.64 vs r = 0.49, respectively). There was no significant difference in the estimated anaesthetic times between different experience levels. All the surgical disciplines had average OT utilisation exceeding 90%, indicating overutilisation. A total of 12 cases (7.1%) were cancelled. Most cases were cancelled due to exceeded allocated block OT times (7 cases) or unavailability of ICU beds (2 cases). We concluded that OTs exceeding the given OT time is the most frequent reason for cancelling elective surgical cases on the day of surgery.