The untold story of the COVID-19 pandemic: perceptions and views towards social stigma and bullying in the shadow of COVID-19 illness in Jordan

Akour, Amal; AlMuhaissen, Suha A.; Nusair, Mohammad B.; Al-Tammemi, Ala’a B.; Mahmoud, Nouf N.; Jalouqa, Sarah; Alrawashdeh, Maissa N.

doi:10.1007/s43545-021-00252-0

Cited by 15 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(53 reference statements)

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“…This result was uniform across all sociodemographic and occupational categories. Although this finding does not necessarily imply a negative attitude towards MSM stricto sensu, it should be evaluated further especially in the Middle East region, where a few studies pointed to the generally negative attitude towards MSM in the context of HIV infection, besides the reporting of social stigma and bullying towards COVID-19 patients in the early phases of the pandemic [ 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ]. This issue needs further evaluation in future studies, since in the words of the WHO Director General “stigma and discrimination can be as dangerous as any virus” [ 1 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Healthcare Workers’ Knowledge and Their Confidence in the Diagnosis and Management of Human Monkeypox: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Middle Eastern Country

et al. 2022

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The ongoing multi-country human monkeypox (HMPX) outbreak was declared as a public health emergency of international concern. Considering the key role of healthcare workers (HCWs) in mitigating the HMPX outbreak, we aimed to assess their level of knowledge and their confidence in diagnosis and management of the disease, besides the assessment of their attitude towards emerging virus infections from a conspiracy point of view. An online survey was distributed among HCWs in Jordan, a Middle Eastern country, during May–July 2022 using a questionnaire published in a previous study among university students in health schools in Jordan. The study sample comprised 606 HCWs, with about two-thirds being either physicians (n = 204, 33.7%) or nurses (n = 190, 31.4%). Four out of the 11 HMPX knowledge items had <50% correct responses with only 33.3% of the study respondents having previous knowledge that vaccination is available to prevent HMPX. A majority of study respondents (n = 356, 58.7%) strongly agreed, agreed or somewhat agreed that the spread of HMPX is related to a role of male homosexuals. Confidence in the ability of diagnosis based on the available monkeypox virus diagnostic tests was reported by 50.2% of the respondents, while the confidence levels were lower for the ability to manage (38.9%) and to diagnose (38.0%) HMPX cases based on their current level of knowledge and skills. Higher confidence levels for HMPX diagnosis and management were found among physicians compared to nurses. The endorsement of conspiracy beliefs about virus emergence was associated with lower HMPX knowledge, the belief in the role of male homosexuals in HMPX spread, and with lower diagnosis and management confidence levels. The current study highlighted the gaps in knowledge regarding HMPX among HCWs in Jordan as well as the lack of confidence to diagnose and manage cases among physicians and nurses. Raising the awareness about the disease is needed urgently considering the rapid escalation in the number of cases worldwide with reported cases in the Middle East. The attitude towards male homosexuals’ role in HMPX spread necessitates proper intervention measures to prevent stigma and discrimination among this risk group. The adoption of conspiratorial beliefs regarding virus emergence was widely prevalent and this issue needs to be addressed with proper and accurate knowledge considering its potential harmful impact.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Healthcare Workers’ Knowledge and Their Confidence in the Diagnosis and Management of Human Monkeypox: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Middle Eastern Country

et al. 2022

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“…In our study the overt fear of stigmatization was expressed by almost 20% of those who would not share contacts (and probably this fear was masked by a part of respondents indicating they do not want to disturb contact persons), but they represented only a small part of all participants, while stigmatization fear could be expressed by 65–75% of individuals in countries of Africa [ 34 ] or Asia [ 36 ], by 57% in China [ 12 ] and by 46% (but only 7% expressed high stigma score) in the USA [ 37 ]. Reduced contacts sharing also occurs in other infections but mainly limited to highly stigmatisized sexually transmitted diseases [ 38 , 39 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Willingness to share contacts in case of COVID-19 positivity–predictors of collaboration resistance in a nation-wide Italian survey

et al. 2022

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Background The unwillingness to share contacts is one of the least explored aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we report the factors associated with resistance to collaborate on contact tracing, based on the results of a nation-wide survey conducted in Italy in January-March 2021. Methods and findings The repeated cross-sectional on-line survey was conducted among 7,513 respondents (mean age 45.7, 50.4% women) selected to represent the Italian adult population 18–70 years old. Two groups were defined based on the direct question response expressing (1) unwillingness or (2) willingness to share the names of individuals with whom respondents had contact. We selected 70% of participants (training data set) to produce several multivariable binomial generalized linear models and estimated the proportion of variation explained by the model by McFadden R2, and the model’s discriminatory ability by the index of concordance. Then, we have validated the regression models using the remaining 30% of respondents (testing data set), and identified the best performing model by removing the variables based on their impact on the Akaike information criterion and then evaluating the model predictive accuracy. We also performed a sensitivity analysis using principal component analysis. Overall, 5.5% of the respondents indicated that in case of positive SARS-CoV-2 test they would not share contacts. Of note, this percentage varied from 0.8% to 46.5% depending on the answers to other survey questions. From the 139 questions included in the multivariable analysis, the initial model proposed 20 independent factors that were reduced to the 6 factors with only modest changes in the model performance. The 6-variables model demonstrated good performance in the training (c-index 0.85 and McFadden R2 criteria 0.25) and in the testing data set (93.3% accuracy, AUC 0.78, sensitivity 30.4% and specificity 97.4%). The most influential factors related to unwillingness to share contacts were the lack of intention to perform the test in case of contact with a COVID-19 positive individual (OR 5.60, 95% CI 4.14 to 7.58, in a fully adjusted multivariable analysis), disagreement that the government should be allowed to force people into self-isolation (OR 1.79, 95% CI 1.12 to 2.84), disagreement with the national vaccination schedule (OR 2.63, 95% CI 1.86 to 3.69), not following to the preventive anti-COVID measures (OR 3.23, 95% CI 1.85 to 5.59), the absence of people in the immediate social environment who have been infected with COVID-19 (1.66, 95% CI 1.24 to 2.21), as well as difficulties in finding or understanding the information about the infection or related recommendations. A limitation of this study is the under-representation of persons not participating in internet-based surveys and some vulnerable groups like homeless people, persons with disabilities or migrants. Conclusions Our analysis revealed several groups that expressed unwillingness to collaborate on contact tracing. The identified patterns may play a principal role not only in the COVID-19 epidemic but also be important for possible future public health threats, and appropriate interventions for their correction should be developed and ready for the implementation.

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“…Bullying behaviors were evident against East and Southeast Asian university students residing in Jordan during the pandemic due to the association of the origin and spread of the disease to their nationality [ 26 ]. Furthermore, a high percentage (i.e., 86.9%) of Jordanians believed that people in Jordan excessively bullied patients infected with COVID-19 [ 25 ]. Those reasons explain the high score of the liberalism subscale (which included items related to the implementation and adherence to COVID-19 protective measures) and criminalization of transmission subscale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such stigmatization led to bullying behaviors against infected cases and their associates. Jordanians believed that COVID-19 patients were highly bullied and a high percentage of the public enjoyed sharing patients’ identities or news on social media platforms [ 25 ]. Bullying behaviors were further extended to those who were associated with the origin of the disease.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 related stigma, empathy and intention for testing in Jordan

2022

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Stigmatization of COVID-19 disease has been speculated due to misinformation about the disease, fearing of contracting the infection, absence of available cure, and holding responsibility for infecting others. We aimed to establish the prevalence of COVID-19 related stigma and its association with empathic responding, in addition to exploring predictors of stigma and testing intention among Jordanian people. A quantitative, descriptive and predictive design was used and data were collected using a web-based survey from 1074 adults. Findings showed that participants had high stigmatization against COVID-19 infection. Higher empathic responding (both cognitive and affective), being a female participant, and older age resulted in higher stigmatization. Only stigmatization of COVID-19 negatively predicted individuals’ intention for testing. These findings warrant intensive efforts from the Jordanian government on a local and national level to provide ongoing public education related to several aspects of COVID-19 disease, in order to reduce or prevent the associated stigma and increase people’s intention for testing.

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The untold story of the COVID-19 pandemic: perceptions and views towards social stigma and bullying in the shadow of COVID-19 illness in Jordan

Cited by 15 publications

References 47 publications

Assessing Healthcare Workers’ Knowledge and Their Confidence in the Diagnosis and Management of Human Monkeypox: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Middle Eastern Country

Assessing Healthcare Workers’ Knowledge and Their Confidence in the Diagnosis and Management of Human Monkeypox: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Middle Eastern Country

Willingness to share contacts in case of COVID-19 positivity–predictors of collaboration resistance in a nation-wide Italian survey

COVID-19 related stigma, empathy and intention for testing in Jordan

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