Medical residents’ attitudes and emotions related to Middle East respiratory syndrome in Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study

Aldrees, Turki; Al Ghobain, Mohammed; Alenezi, Abdullah; Alqaryan, Saleh; Aldabeeb, Dana; Alotaibi, Najed; Alzahrani, Kamal; Alharethy, Sami

that a greater percentage of HCWs who were older than 35 years of age reported a high level of concern about infection than did HCWs who were younger than 35 years (27% versus 23%) 12 Our finding may be attributed to the fact that we included only physicians. In addition, the cultural background of our sample might have influenced our findings: older physicians tend to have families and to be supporting their loved ones. Moreover, the median age of our sample differed from that of previous studies showing that younger staff had more concerns about infection than did older staff. In our study, around half of residents reported receiving adequate training in the use of personal protective equipment. In contrast, a study of HCWs affiliated with the Ministry of Health showed that most of participants lacked confidence in using protective equipment 10 The difference in findings might be attributed to the fact that our study was conducted at a tertiary hospital, which tend to have more opportunities for continuing medical education and hold more workshops. Moreover, the available level of expertise is often greater than that of primary or secondary hospitals. Another reason might be that we used medical residents as a sample, whereas most of participants in the other studies were nurses. The limitations of the present study include the cross-sectional research design and the possibility of reporting bias. Moreover, because the study was conducted in 4 tertiary hospitals in a single city, the results might not be generalizable to residents in other parts of the country. Although the MERS outbreak started in Jeddah, it has continued since its discovery in 2012 and spread to most of the hospitals in the country, including those involved in this study. Therefore, it is likely that all medical residents in these 4 hospitals had been exposed to or cared for suspected cases of MERS-CoV. Nevertheless, our study provides initial evidence for the attitudes, perceptions, and emotions related to an MERS outbreak among medical residents.