One year of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: a characterization of infected healthcare workers in a peripheral hospital of Lisbon, Portugal

ABSTRACT

Introduction: After more than one year of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, there are still scarce studies on healthcare workers and particular risk factors for infection, with most published papers focusing on the psychological impact of the pandemic. Our group analyzed infection rates by professional category, hospital service, as well as initial symptom onset and description in our hospital center. Material and Methods: We conducted a descriptive study of our hospital center’s healthcare workers that were infected with COVID-19 from the 13th of march of 2020 until the 31st of march of 2021. The information was mostly based on the occupational health service’s database and confirmed by consulting TRACE-COVID, a platform that gathered information on every COVID-19 patient, nationwide. Results: From March 2020 to March 2021, about 13.7% of our hospital’s staff was diagnosed with COVID-19, with the most affected being nurses and nurses’ aides, and healthcare professionals working in the emergency department, as well as infirmaries of internal medicine and general surgery. Conclusions: In our center, known high risk scenarios in the workplace were not particularly met with high incidence rate of infection, probably because of a particular compliance in the use of personal protective equipment. Although the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic remains a challenging event for hospital centers worldwide, occupational health services should use this opportunity to better study infection rates in their work environment and optimize prevention measures to further protect our professional’s health and safety.