Adverse skin reactions to personal protective equipment during COVID-19 pandemic in Italian health care workers.

To avoid exposure to SARS-COV-2, healthcare professionals must use personal protective equipment (PPE). Their use has been related to a series of adverse effects; the most frequent adverse events were headache, dyspnoea, and pressure injuries. Skin adverse effects are very common, including contact dermatitis, itching, erythema, and acneiform eruptions. The objective of this study is to evaluate the skin problems caused by personal protection equipment (PPE) in health care workers (HCWs) and to individuate eventual risk factors. From May to June 2020 a retrospective observational multi-centric study conducted by an online survey sent by email, involving 10 hospital centers, was performed. We considered as independent variables gender and age, occupational group and sector, time of utilization, type and material of PPE. We tested 3 types of PPE: gloves, bonnet, and mask for different time of utilization (<1, 1-3, 3-6, >6 h). We performed a multiple logistic regression model to correlate them with skin adverse events occurrence. Among all the 1184 participants, 292 workers reported a dermatological pathology: 45 (15.41%) had psoriasis, 54 (18.49%) eczema, 38 (13.01%) acne, 48 (16.44%) seborrheic dermatitis, and 107 (36.64%) other. In our sample previous inflammatory dermatological conditions, female sex, prolonged use of PPE were significant risk factors for developing skin related adverse events considering all the PPE considered. The use of PPE is still mandatory in the hospital setting and skin adverse reactions still represent a global problem. Although data from Europe are limited, our study highlighted the importance of the problem of PPE skin reactions in a large sample of Italian healthcare professionals.

Safety and Impact of Anti-COVID-19 Vaccines in Psoriatic Patients Treated with Biologics: A Real Life Experience.

Since all clinical trials conducted during the development of anti-COVID-19 vaccines have adopted among the exclusion criteria the presence of immunodepression or immunomodulating therapy, to date, the effects of vaccination against the new coronavirus 2 in people under such conditions have yet to be clearly defined. The primary objective of the study is to assess the safety of treatment with biotechnological drugs in patients suffering from moderate-severe psoriasis and subjected to the prophylactic vaccination against SARS-Cov-2. Additionally, the secondary objective of the research is to investigate the existence of a possible impact of anti-COVID-19 vaccination on the natural chronic-relapsing course and the severity of the psoriatic disease. The study included 436 patients with moderate-severe psoriasis, both male and female, in treatment with biologics. The data were collected using the direct interview method. A reduction of 74.13% of average Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI )compared to baseline (T0) was found in all subjects; this does not differ significantly from the group that underwent vaccination (73.4%). Moreover; at the end of the study, neither mild nor severe adverse events (ADR) were observed among them. In conclusion, biotechnological drugs used in the management of patients with moderate-severe psoriasis demonstrate a high safety profile also in subjects immunized against SARS-Cov-2.