Willingness of healthcare workers to treat COVID-19 patients during the pandemic: Extended theory of planned behavior

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers played a significant role in minimizing the maximum spread of the virus. This study aims to investigate the relationship between healthcare workers' attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, perceived effectiveness of the pandemic, risk perception of the COVID-19 pandemic, and willingness to treat COVID-19 patients in Lahore, Pakistan. However, the extended theory of planned behavior was applied and included two key constructs (perceived effectiveness and risk perception of the COVID-19 pandemic). Data were collected from 253 male and female respondents working in public, private, and semi-government hospitals. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to test the proposed hypotheses. Overall, the findings show that healthcare workers' attitudes, social norms, and perceived behavioral control significantly impact healthcare workers' willingness to treat COVID-19 patients. In contrast, perceived effectiveness and risk perception of the pandemic showed a negative effect. The results suggested that healthcare workers showed positive attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control to COVID-19 patients. On the other hand, due to the virus novelty, effectiveness and risk perception of the pandemic was very high, which shows that healthcare workers feel stressed and scared to treat COVID-19 patients.