Health in Emergencies & Disasters Quarterly (Jul 2024)
Explaining the Challenges of Providing Healthcare Services During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study
Abstract
Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the health and treatment departments of military organizations provided various services to control the pandemic; however, there were some challenges for the organization. This study explains the challenges in providing healthcare services in the COVID-19 pandemic from the managers’ viewpoints. Materials and Methods: In this study, a qualitative research method with a conventional content analysis approach was used. A total of 58 managers participated in this study. The participants included 8 senior managers, 23 middle managers, and 27 executive managers who were included in the study via the purposive sampling method. A semi-structured, in-depth individual interview with open questions was used to collect the data. Primary codes were extracted and compiled into main and sub-categories based on the codes. Results: The initial codes after integration with inductive content analysis included 4 main categories and 13 subcategories, including challenges in the field of mental health (unknown illness and mental problems of military personnel), a lack of risk perception (in executives and employees), intra-organizational challenges (lack of equipment, dysfunction of functional structure, lack of medicine and vaccine, lack of resources, inconsistency of information) and external challenges (disruption of social order and unity, the lack of reliable news information, change of national education program and inconsistency between organizations). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that managers of military organizations have faced important challenges in providing healthcare services. Carrying out measures to improve mental health, improving risk perception in managers and employees, and internal and external coordination can eliminate the weak points of the organization to manage similar incidents.