Abstract:

The last three months we are observing the scientific communities worldwide working hard and speeding up the efforts to uncover the secrets behind the COVID-19 pandemic searching for an effective treatment and a vaccine.
In this constantly changing pandemic situation multiple efforts are put on conducting needs assessments, disseminating educational experience, providing hand sanitizers, masks and other personal protective equipment for health professionals, training on the clinical management of patients with COVID-19, collaboration among different authorities, etc. Most of the healthcare systems are almost collapsing.
The objectives of this study are to show the preparedness of health professionals in Bulgaria, regarding the 2020 pandemic, focusing on dissemination of educational materials.
The methodology include a questionnaire with closed and open questions and in-depth interviews with health professionals studying in our Bachelor and Master program “Management of Health Care”.
The results show that according to the health professionals the most important issues for the appropriate preparedness and an effective combat are 1) teaching and learning how to protect themselves (76.8%), and 2) sharing and disseminating information about how to treat infected patients (52.5%).
During the in-depth interviews health professionals share that “Every day we learn a bit more about this new virus.” And “Today we know more than we knew yesterday about COVID-19”. It is a question of spreading educational materials, disseminating educational protocols and constantly learning.
As a vaccine is not available and the number of patients diagnosed by the coronavirus infection is growing up constantly the need for an appropriate specific treatment is absolutely needed as well as disseminating educational experience about the disease.
Even if researchers are looking for a treatment, health professionals and whole societies are trying to learn more about how they could better protect themselves. Across the country, 4,268 health workers, or 0.4 percent of the total, were infected by March 20, according to data from the National Institutes of Health. More than 1,700 health workers were infected by coronavirus in China.
We tried to figure out if health professionals know how to protect themselves efficiently while working hard at the front line in the combat with the disease. The results are not optimistic at all. Even more, health professionals are almost desperate in their lack of detailed educational protocols for treatment of COVID-19 patients. In some hospitals there have been and in others there still are serious problems with supplies of personal protective equipment. The results show that many of the hospitals wards are not well equipped to treat corona virus patients. There is an immense lack of personnel, facilities, personal protective equipment, educational protocols, algorithms, adequate response actions, technical guidance for clinical care, etc.
The whole world seems that isn’t prepared for such a global pandemic, neither the health professionals nor the governments. Nations worldwide are putting so much efforts to stop the spread of the disease most of them not efficient enough. We all are facing such a powerful thread for the existence of the whole mankind.

Keywords:

COVID-19 pandemic, health professionals’ preparedness, education in response action.