Personal Protective Equipment in COVID-19: Impacts on Health Performance, Work-Related Injuries, and Measures for Prevention.
J Occup Environ Med
; 63(3): 221-225, 2021 Mar 01.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1189509
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
To assess impact of personal protective equipment (PPE) on healthcare providers (HCPs) in caring for COVID-19 patients.METHODS:
A cross-sectional survey was conducted over 50 hospitals in China. Descriptive analyses and Chi-square tests were performed on the collected data.RESULTS:
All 104 frontline HCPs report negative impacts of PPE on their clinical performance, 97% of them experienced discomfort and injuries caused by wearing PPE for long hours. Frontline HCPs provided suggestions to alleviate the negative impacts and to enhance communication between healthcare staff and patients. Two hundred eighty two non-frontline HCPs also revealed similar problems; however, we recorded a few discrepancies between answers given by frontline and non-frontline HCPs.CONCLUSIONS:
Wearing PPE for long hours degrades health performance. Measures were suggested to improve the design of PPE for protecting HCPs and enhancing their services to COVID patients.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Occupational Injuries
/
Personal Protective Equipment
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
English
Journal:
J Occup Environ Med
Journal subject:
Occupational Medicine
/
Environmental Health
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
JOM.0000000000002123
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