Accounting for the impact of the COVID19 pandemic on healthcare professionals: informing sustainable practices to achieve SDGs
Keywords:
accounting, COVID-19 Pandemic, sustainability, healthcareAbstract
Purpose: While most studies have investigated healthcare responses to emergent health needs during COVID-19 crisis, scant research has addressed accounting for the pandemic’s impact on healthcare personnel’ quality of life.
Methodology: A survey has been conducted to gather data from professionals working for a Northern Italian public local healthcare organization, to understand their perceptions on their self-efficacy, work environment, working conditions and quality of life during COVID19.
Findings: Positive work environment was found to reduce negative effects of COVID19 on the quality of life of healthcare personnel. At the same it brought a better achievement of work-life balance. Nevertheless, increased self-efficacy caused a sense of malaise due to the heavy workload and additional responsibilities.
Originality/Value: This study takes a broader stance on “accounting” as non-financial information relevant for sustainability decision making and adopts such a perspective to account for the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on healthcare professionals operating in a local health organization; this approach allows to inform sustainable human resource management practices in the light of SDGs in such knowledge-intensive organizations.
Downloads
References
Amrutha, V. N. and Geetha, S. N. (2020), “A systematic review on green human resource management: Implications for social sustainability”, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 247, p. 119131.
Ardebili, M. E., Naserbakht, M., Bernstein, C., Alazmani-Noodeh, F., Hakimi, H. and Ranjbar, H. (2021), “Healthcare providers experience of working during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study”, American Journal of Infection Control, Vol. 49 No. 5, pp. 547-554.
Ayar, D., Karaman, M. A. and Karaman, R. (2022), “Work-life balance and mental health needs of health professionals during COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey”, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, Vol. 20, pp. 639–655.
Bennett, P., Noble, S., Johnston, S., Jones, D. and Hunter, R. (2020), “COVID-19 confessions: a qualitative exploration of healthcare workers experiences of working with COVID-19”, BMJ Open, Vol. 10 No. 12, p. e043949.
Brolan, C. E., Körver, S., Phillips, G., Sharma, D., Herron, L. M., O'Reilly, G., ... and Cox, M. (2022), “Lessons from the frontline: The COVID-19 pandemic emergency care experience from a human resource perspective in the Pacific region”, The Lancet Regional Health-Western Pacific, Vol. 25, p. 100514.
Carnegie, G. D., Ferri, P., Parker, L. D., Sidaway, S. I. and Tsahuridu, E. E. (2022), “Accounting as technical, social and moral practice: the monetary valuation of public cultural, heritage and scientific collections in financial reports”, Australian Accounting Review, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 460-472.
Carnegie, G., Parker, L. and Tsahuridu, E. (2021), “It's 2020: what is accounting today?”, Australian Accounting Review, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 65-73.
Cavicchi, C. (2017), “Healthcare sustainability and the role of intellectual capital: evidence from an Italian regional health service”, Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 544-563.
Cavicchi, C. and Vagnoni, E. (2017), “Does intellectual capital promote the shift of healthcare organizations towards sustainable development? Evidence from Italy”, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 153, pp. 275-286.
Cortina, J. M. (1993), “What is coefficient alpha? An examination of theory and applications”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 78 No. 1, pp. 98-104.
Garcia, A. S., Carotta, C. L., Brown, R., Da Rosa, P., Pravecek, B. and Carson, P. (2021), “Parenting stress, self‐efficacy and COVID‐19 health risks as predictors of general stress among nurses”, International Journal of Nursing Practice, Vol. 27 No. 6, p. e13009.
Grossi, G., Kallio, K. M., Sargiacomo, M. and Skoog, M. (2020), “Accounting, performance management systems and accountability changes in knowledge-intensive public organizations: a literature review and research agenda”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 256-280.
Hu, L. T. and Bentler, P. M. (1999), “Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives”, Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 1-55.
Huber, C., Gerhardt, N. and Reilley, J. T. (2021), “Organizing care during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of accounting in German hospitals”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Vol. 34 No. 6, pp. 1445-1456.
Marsh, H. W. and Hocevar, D. (1985), “Application of confirmatory factor analysis to the study of self-concept: First- and higher-order factor models and their invariance across groups”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 97 No. 3, pp. 562-582.
Menne, B., Aragon de Leon, E, Bekker, M., Mirzikashvili, N., Morton, S., Shriwise, A., Tomson, G., Vracko, P. and Wippel, C. (2020), “Health and well-being for all: An approach to accelerating progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in countries in the WHO European Region”, European Journal of Public Health, Vol. 30 No. Supplement 1, pp. i3–i9.
Paparatto, G., Benedetto, V., Gori, L. and Nuti, S. (2023), “Social sustainability of healthcare systems: a scoping review”, Population Medicine, Vol. 5, p. A810.
Parisi, C. and Bekier, J. (2022), “Assessing and managing the impact of COVID-19: A study of six European cities participating in a circular economy project”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 97-107.
Rinaldi, L. (2022), “Accounting and the COVID-19 pandemic two years on: insights, gaps, and an agenda for future research”, Accounting Forum, https://doi.org/10.1080/01559982.2022.2045418.
Rinaldi, L., Cho, C. H., Lodhia, S. K., Michelon, G. and Tilt, C. A. (2020), “Accounting in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: a forum for academic research”, Accounting Forum, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 180-183.
Sargiacomo, M. (2015), “Earthquakes, exceptional government and extraordinary accounting”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 42 No. 3, pp. 67-89.
Secundo, G., Ndou, V., Del Vecchio, P. and De Pascale, G. (2020), “Sustainable development, intellectual capital and technology policies: A structured literature review and future research agenda”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 153, p. 119917.
Schumacker, R. E. and Lomax, R. G. (2004). A beginner's guide to structural equation modeling, Second edition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Sidaway, S. I., Juric, D. and Deegan, C. (2023), “Teaching the concept of decision-usefulness, and accounting as a technical, social and moral practice: the case of COVID-19 “case number” reporting”, Meditari Accountancy Research, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 121-140.
Walton-Roberts, M. (2021), “COVID-19 and Health Professionals: Recommitting to a Global Health Agenda”, in Andrews, G. J., Crooks, V. A., Pearce, J. and Messina, J. P. (Eds.), COVID-19 and Similar Futures: Pandemic Geographies, Springer, Cham, pp. 373-380.
Wenham, C., Smith, J. and Morgan, R. (2020), “COVID-19: The gendered impacts of the outbreak”, The Lancet, Vol. 395 No. 10227, pp. 846–848.
Vindrola-Padros, C., Andrews, L., Dowrick, A., Djellouli, N., Fillmore, H., Gonzalez, E. B., ... and Johnson, G. (2020), “Perceptions and experiences of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK”, BMJ Open, Vol. 10 No. 11, p. e040503.
Zeb, S., Akbar, A., Gul, A., Haider, S. A., Poulova, P. and Yasmin, F. (2021), “Work–Family conflict, emotional intelligence, and general self-efficacy among medical practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic”, Psychology Research and Behavior Management, Vol. 14, pp. 1867-1876.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 European journal of volunteering and community-based projects
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
