Cibersecurity: A healthcare professional's perspective

Abstract

The present study aimed is to understand the training of health professionals in relation to cybersecurity and cyberattack prevention in the institutions where they work. The study consists of applying a previously validated and published Likert-type response scale to assess attitudes towards cybersecurity in a business environment (ATC-IB), with the purpose of obtaining data on several indicators such as cybersecurity and risk management of cyberattacks from the perspective of health professionals. This is an observational, quantitative, cross-sectional, and descriptive study on attitudes towards cybersecurity in their workplaces. A database was created in Microsoft Office Excel ® program and for descriptive and exploratory statistical analysis of the data, the R programming language and the EZR plug-in were used. In the sample under study 82 health professionals were included and 8 were excluded for a statistical question. Respondents by gender: 76% women and 24% men. Divided into 4 professional groups: nurses; physicians; senior technicians of diagnosis and therapy (TSDT); and managers.  The average age is 38.12 years with a standard deviation of 12.38. The area covered is mostly located in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region, with 94.4% of respondents; the Northern region with 4.4%, and the Alentejo region with 1.1% of respondents. 72% work in the public sector; 25% in the private sector; and 3% in the social sector. Academic degree and academic qualifications are distributed as follows: 2% have a PhD; 32% have a Master's degree; 60% have a degree. We conclude that there are some differences in terms of knowledge of cybersecurity, namely in the 18-30 age group and the remaining age groups, as well as between genders in the same item (not knowing who to turn to if there is a cyberattack). This difficulty is more evident in age groups over 31 and in the female gender. Also between genders, there is a statistically significant difference in the item (gaining from the financial point of view with cyberattacks), concluding that the female gender has the perception that money is not the only motivating factor of cyberattacks. Between professional classes, differences were found between nurses and SDWTs for one item: nurses give more importance to governmental newsletters regarding cybercrime than SDWTs; and one item between nurses and managers: managers have more knowledge about who is responsible for protecting the health institution from cyber threats than nurses. Overall the ATC-IB scale in the three variables (gender, age groups and professional classes) no major differences were found, in general there is training of health professionals in relation to cybersecurity and prevention of cyberattacks in the context of work environment.