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This study explored the experiences of Irish emergency medical services (EMS) first responders during the first nationwide restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19.

A systematic literature review (SLR) of research into healthcare workers' and first responders' experiences during the COVID-19 and 2003 SARS pandemics was performed. The SLR informed the content of an online questionnaire distributed via the Irish Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council to 2,092 first responders on its live register. Data analysis used both descriptive and content analysis.

EMS first responders faced many challenges including PPE quality, training on its use, issues with decontamination facilities, and organisational effectiveness. Emotional challenges included the anxiety experienced, the impact on families, and ethical dilemmas confronted related to patient care. Positive findings also emerged, such as first responders' dedication to working through the pandemic, collegiality, and the community goodwill displayed.

While investigations of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers have been undertaken globally, studies focussing exclusively on the experiences of EMS first responders have been rare. This study addressed this knowledge gap, providing an insight into the challenges and successes experienced by first responders and identifying opportunities for learning that can be applied to future public health emergencies.

This study sought to understand the physical, educational and operational needs faced by healthcare workers (HCWs) (including physicians, nurses and allied health workers) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A descriptive cross-sectional design was undertaken. HCWs working in hospitals, health centers, testing and quarantine areas in the Kingdom of Bahrain were invited to complete the online survey questionnaire developed by authors containing three domains: physical, educational, and perceived knowledge, and operational needs.

A convenient sample (N = 627) of volunteered participants responded to the online survey. The biggest challenges that HCWs were exposed to are physical needs (experiencing dry hands, difficulty breathing while on a mask, feeling hot and sweaty, and less fluid and food intake) which were reported as the higher level, followed by operational needs (limited communication due to Personal Protective Equipment - PPE - use, longer working hours, and preparation time to get ready for duty). Other challenges pertained to education and knowledge (the presence of multiple sources of information confused them during the care practices). Females faced more challenges than males, and Bahraini HCWs handled challenges more than non-Bahrainis. A negative relationship was found between age and years of experience with the challenges of the HCWs.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, health systems face rapidly increasing demands. HCWs face several challenges while providing patient care, particularly physical needs. This study provides adequate data for healthcare administrators to maintain a safe working environment during pandemics.

This study explores how compassionate managerial leadership style can help to mitigate workplace stressors and alleviate stress experiences among employees — particularly in an extreme situation, such as the current global COVID-19 pandemic. The study's context is Nigeria's banking, manufacturing and healthcare sectors, which have a history of high employee stress levels.

Using a qualitative, interpretive methodology, the study adopts the thematic analysis process (TAP) to draw and analyse data from semi-structured telephone interviews with 10 banking, 11 manufacturing and 9 frontline healthcare workers in Nigeria.

It was found that a compassionate managerial leadership can drive a considerate response to employees' “fear of job (in)security”, “healthcare risk” and concerns about “work overload, underpayment and delayed payment”, which respondents considered to be some of the key causes of increased stress among employees during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The study is limited to exploring the relationship between compassionate managerial leadership and an organisation's ability to manage employee stress in the COVID-19 situation, using 30 samples from organisations operating in three Nigerian cities and sectors. Future studies may involve more Nigerian cities, sectors and samples. It may also possibly include quantitative combination to allow generalisation of findings.

In order to survive in extreme situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, organisations are forced to take drastic and often managerialist-driven work measures which can trigger high stress levels, low productivity and absenteeism among employees. Hence, organisations would benefit from implementing compassion-driven policies that are more inclusive and responsive to the workplace stressors facing employees.

Employee stress has been widely explored in many areas, including definitions, stressors, strains, possible interventions and coping strategies. There remains, however, a dearth of scholarship on how management-leadership compassion can help to reduce employee stress levels in extreme conditions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic — particularly in emerging economies.

This study explored how the Singaporean government responded to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis from early January 2020 to the end of May of the same year. It evaluated the capability of Singapore's leadership management in a crisis during the peak and ravaging period of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study utilised a systematic design analysis approach, analysing Singaporean cases on the Covid-19 crisis using a systematic and narrative approach to underscore the country's response to the pandemic attack from January 2020 to May 2020.

Against the backdrop of Singapore's peculiar political system of government dominated by the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and culture of bureaucracy, the government has increasingly executed several control measures, including strict travel bans, contact tracing, the circuit breaker–lockdown, mask-wearing, social distancing orders as well as financial support to businesses and employees from top to the bottom in the country. However, the treatment and health issues of the migrant workers in the dormitories continue to be the major concern among academics and scholars. At the same time, policy inadequacies truncate the excellent measure of Singapore's response to Covid-19. The case point review concluded that the mortality rate in Singapore remains low compared to other nations of the world. Singapore's case points unveil fundamental learning that an excellent leadership-driven harmonised strategic model is essential for crisis management in any society. The finding of the analysis demonstrated that Singapore adopted a contingency and value-based leadership model to advance good governance and tackle the spread of the deadly coronavirus in its country.

The study has demonstrated a profound analysis that has not been conducted hitherto. Investigation of the Singapore case point is not a popular analysis among Nigerian scholars. Therefore, from Nigeria's perspective, the study has showcased the good and the wrong sides of a coin in Singapore's leadership and power dynamic in crisis management.

This aim of this study was to explore how hospital-based physicians in Sweden experienced the challenges in working conditions related to the provision of care during the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when hospitals transitioned to pandemic care.

The study has a qualitative design. Twenty-five hospital-based physicians were interviewed about their experiences from working in a hospital while healthcare organisations initially responded to COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A thematic analysis was used to analyse the empirical material.

The analysis resulted in four themes: involuntary self-management, a self-restrictive bureaucracy, passive occupational safety and health (OSH) management, and information overload. These themes reflect how the physicians perceived their work situation during the pandemic and how they tried to maintain quality care for their patients.

The study gives valuable insights for formulating preparedness in regard to crisis management plans that can secure the provision of care for future emergencies in the healthcare services.

This paper shows that a crisis management plans in the healthcare services should include decision structures and management, measures of risk assessment and OSH management, and the maintenance of personnel wellbeing. A prepared healthcare management can preserve quality care delivery while under crisis.

Drawing on social exchange theory and the expectancy–value model, this study has two objectives. First, it sought to explore the mediating role of nurses’ self-concept and affective commitment between perceived organizational support (POS) and three different targets (organization, co-workers and patients) of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Second, it aimed to develop a better understanding of how nurses´ self-concept and affective commitment mediate the influence of POS on OCB directed toward different targets through sequential mediation.

A cross-sectional study was conducted with 229 nurses. This sample was representative of the nursing population based on several demographic characteristics. Data analysis was performed using partial least squares analysis.

The study revealed that nurses´ self-concept plays a mediating role between POS and OCB directed toward the organization, co-workers and patients, while affective commitment has a mediating effect between POS and OCB directed toward the organization and co-workers. Finally, the indirect influence of POS on OCB through nurses´ self-concept and affective commitment was significant only at the organizational level.

This study contributes to the extant literature by identifying the mediating role of nurses´ self-concept among social exchange constructs such as POS, affective commitment and OCB directed toward different targets.