Personal Protective Equipment Interventions in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemics

Abstract

Volume 2(1): 1-1 A recent study in China demonstrated that the rapid surge of COVID-19 in healthcare workers (HCWs) may be the lack of effective protection measures. This study revealed that there were no significant differences in the use of gloves or medical masks among the three group of 1) intensive care unit (ICU) staff, 2) staff working in the fever outpatient department, general patient room, Fangcang shelter hospital, emergency department, cleaning area, imaging examination area, and transfer vehicle, and 3) staff working in the general outpatient department, community, pharmacy, and administrative area. Nevertheless, all other types of personal protective equipment (PPE) (N95/FFP2 respirator, face shield/goggles, isolation gown, medical protective uniform, and positive pressure headgear) were used most group 1 and HCWs in group 2. Skin injury was the most common type (62.3 %) of PPE-associated adverse events (87.3 %), dyspnea (61.8 %), dizziness (57.8 %), and headache (53.8 %). Greater risks of adverse events occurred in both doctors (30.2 %) and nurses (66.5 %) compared to other types of HCWs (3.3 %, both p < 0.05). The negative results of the reverse-transcriptase-polymerasechain-reaction tests in all three group participants accompanying negative results of serological tests in 70 % of all participants suggested the efficacious measure of PPE for the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) nosocomial transmission. The need for guidance on rationalizing, prioritizing, and grading the PPE use due to HCWs’ infection risk is supported by the efficacy of different PPE among HCWs in different working areas. The basic emergency guidance of PPE for protecting HCWs should be issued at the earliest stage of an epidemic, not months later. Although 98.6 % of HCWs revealed high adherence level to PPE protocols, PPE was commonly related to adverse events in the study participants both physically and psychologically.