AUTHOR=Al-Jayyousi Ghadir Fakhri , Nour Mohamed , Suliman Jinan , Abed Alah Muna , Ali Khaled , Abdeen Sami , Al-Thani Mohammed , Jaffrey Shariq , Al-Romaihi Hamad Eid , Farag Elmoubasher 

TITLE=Barriers to Practicing COVID-19 Preventive Behaviors Among Migrant Workers in Qatar: A Qualitative Study During the First Wave of the Pandemic

JOURNAL=International Journal of Public Health

VOLUME=67

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/international-journal-of-public-health/articles/10.3389/ijph.2022.1604881

DOI=10.3389/ijph.2022.1604881

ISSN=1661-8564

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Objectives:</bold> Manual and Craft Workers (MACWs), who constitute more than 80% of the population, were identified to be a vulnerable group to COVID-19 in Qatar. The goal of this study is to identify the limitations face MACWs in Qatar towards practicing the COVID-19 preventive measures and thereby designing behavioral change strategies.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> This is a qualitative research study in which individual interviews and focus group discussions were utilized for a deep understanding of the phenomenon from key informants. Four onlive individual interviews and four focus groups (<italic>n</italic> = 55) were conducted and transcribed verbatim. Inductive qualitative analysis was followed to discover the themes of the interviews. Data were analyzed using constant comparative techniques.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> Major themes elicited from the analysis revealed that the barriers to following COVID-19 preventive behaviors among migrant workers in Qatar included barriers related to knowledge and risk perception; lifestyle and habits; nature of work and living conditions, and barriers related to health communication, diversified cultures, and languages.</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> The findings would support constructing culturally sensitive health education messages and planning for effective health communication campaigns.</p>