ABSTRACT
Background. Nursing homes (NHs) are high risk settings for COVID. Staff are the primary source for introducing COVID into a NH. Preventing staff from working when ill is key to resident safety. NH staff face significant socioeconomic pressures that may influence their willingness to report COVID symptoms. Understanding the drivers behind unreported illness can inform ways to prevent working when ill. Methods. We conducted a confidential survey of 120 COVID-positive NH staff in Orange County, CA from Dec '20-Feb '22 to quantify the frequency and drivers of unreported COVID symptoms. We designed a 40-item survey to assess demographics, course of illness, symptom reporting behavior, and monetary, logistic, and emotional (stigma/fear) barriers to reporting using a 5-point Likert scale. Recruitment flyers were shared with all 70 NHs in the county and referrals were accepted from NH leadership. Participants received $50 for completing the 20-30 min phone-based survey. We calculated summary statistics, transformed all data to a 0-100 scale, assessed the reliability of each factor related to reporting at the group level using Cronbach's alpha, and assessed discriminant validity with t-tests comparing responses among subsets expected to differ. Results. Table 1 shows participant characteristics. 49% of surveys were during the 2020-21 winter wave and 51% were during the Delta/Omicron waves, with a relatively even distribution of certified nursing assistants (CNAs), nurses, and nonfrontline staff. Most cases (70%) were detected by routine testing at the NH and most (63%) had >=1 symptom prior to their test. Only 39% disclosed their symptom to a supervisor. It is unknown how many staff would have disclosed symptoms if they were not captured during routine testing. Responses were consistent across 15 discrete factors with Cronbach alpha >0.7. Overall, fear and encouragement from supervisors were the most salient factors for speaking up about COVID symptoms (Table 2). Responses varied between the two waves and between frontline vs nonfrontline workers. Conclusion. Frequent surveillance testing of NH staff during a pandemic is critical due to many factors that drive reluctance to speak up about potential symptoms. Encouragement from supervisors to report symptoms and stay home when ill may improve NH safety.
ABSTRACT
Background. OC is the 6th largest U.S. county with 70 NHs. Universal decolonization (chlorhexidine for routine bathing, and twice daily nasal iodophor Mon-Fri every other week) was adopted in 24 NHs prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 12 NHs (11 of those adopting decolonization) participated in a COVID prevention training program with a rolling launch from July-Sept 2020. We evaluated the impact of these initiatives on staff and resident COVID cases. Methods. We conducted a quasi-experimental study of the impact of decolonization and COVID prevention training on staff and resident COVID cases during the CA winter surge (11/16/20-1/31/21), when compared to non-participating NHs. Decolonization NHs received weekly visits for encouraging adherence during the pandemic, and NHs in the COVID training program received 3 in-person training sessions for all work shifts plus weekly feedback about adherence to hand hygiene, masking, and breakroom safety using video monitoring. We calculated incident 1) staff COVID cases, 2) resident COVID cases, and 3) resident COVID deaths adjusting for NH average daily census. We assessed impact of initiatives on these outcomes using linear mixed effects models testing the interaction between any training participation and calendar date when clustering by NH. Because of the overlap of the two initiatives, we evaluated 'any training' vs 'no training.' Results. 63 NHs had available data. 24 adopted universal decolonization, 12 received COVID training (11 of which participated in decolonization), and 38 were not enrolled in either. During the winter surge, the 63 NHs experienced 1867 staff COVID cases, 2186 resident COVID cases, and 251 resident deaths due to COVID, corresponding to 29.6, 34.7, and 4.0 events per NH, respectively. In NHs participating in either initiative, staff COVID cases were reduced by 31% (OR=0.69 (0.52, 0.92), P=0.01), resident COVID cases were reduced by 43% (OR=0.57 (0.39, 0.82), P=0.003), and resident deaths were reduced (non-significantly) by 26% (OR=0.74 (0.46, 1.21), P=0.23). The grey box represents the California COVID-19 winter surge (11/16/20-1/31/21). Incident and cumulative COVID-19 cases and deaths for each nursing home were divided by the nursing home's average daily census and multiplied by 100, representing events per 100 beds, which were aggregated across groups. Conclusion. NHs are vulnerable to COVID-19 outbreaks. A universal decolonization and COVID prevention training initiative in OC, CA significantly reduced staff and resident COVID cases in this high-risk care setting.
ABSTRACT
Background. Federal mandate requires NHs to perform weekly COVID-19 testing of staff. Testing is effective due to barriers to disclosing mild illness, but it is unclear how long the mandate will last. We explored if environmental samples can be used to signal staff COVID-19 cases as an alternative screening tool in NHs. Methods. We conducted a cross sectional study to assess the value of environmental sampling as a trigger for COVID-19 testing of NH staff using data from currently performed weekly staff sweeps. We performed 35 sampling sweeps across 21 NHs from 6/2020-2/2021. For each sweep, we sampled up to 24 high touch objects in NH breakrooms (N=226), entryways (N=216), and nursing stations (N=194) assuming that positive samples were due to contamination from infected staff. Total staff and positive staff counts were tallied for the staff testing sweeps performed the week of and week prior to environmental sampling. Object samples were processed for SARSCoV-2 using PCR (StepOnePlus) with a 1 copy/mL limit of detection. We evaluated concordance between object and staff positivity using Cohen's kappa and calculated the positive and negative predictive value (PPV, NPV) of environmental sweeps for staff positivity, including the attributable capture of positive staff. We tested the association between the proportion of staff positivity and object contamination by room type in a linear regression model when clustering by NH. Results. Among 35 environmental sweeps, 49% had SARS-CoV-2 positive objects and 69% had positive staff in the same or prior week. Mean positivity was 16% (range 0-83%) among objects and 4% (range 0-22%) among staff. Overall, NPV was 61% and Cohen's kappa was 0.60. PPV of object sampling as an indicator of positive staff was 100% for every room type, with an attributable capture of positive staff of 76%, with values varying by room type (Table). Breakroom samples were the strongest indicator of any staff cases. Each percent increase in object positivity was associated with an increase in staff positivity in entryways (7.2% increased staff positivity, P=0.01) and nursing stations (5.7% increased staff positivity, P=0.05). Conclusion. If mandatory weekly staff testing ends in NHs, environmental sampling may serve as an effective tool to trigger targeted COVID-19 testing sweeps of NH staff.