The effect of COVID-19 pandemic on current and future endoscopic personal protective equipment practices: a national survey of 77 endoscopists

ABSTRACT

Background: Personal protective equipment (PPE) guidelines serve to protect health care providers and patients from harmful biohazards. With the rise of COVID-19, many institutions have mandated strictly enforced endoscopic PPE guidelines. We currently do not know how practitioners perceive these mandates or how they will influence their practice in the long term. We aimed to study the PPE practices among endoscopists across Canada and compare their perceived differences in practice between the pre- and postpandemic eras. Methods: A 74-item questionnaire was emailed from June 2020 to September 2020 to all members of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology and the Canadian Association of General Surgeons through monthly newsletters. The survey was created by expert consensus and distributed using REDCap. Survey questions collected basic demographic characteristics of Canadian endoscopists and differences between PPE practices before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: A total of 77 respondents completed the survey, with the majority of respondents aged 40-49 years (34 [44.2%]) and identifying as gastroenterologists (54 [70.1%]). There was an even split in terms of sex (38 women [49.4%], 39 men [50.6%]). In the prepandemic era, the majority of endoscopists wore gowns (91.0-93.9%) and all endoscopists wore gloves (100%). However, the majority of endoscopists did not wear surgical masks (20.9%-31.3%), N95 respirators (1.5%-3.2%), face shields (13.4%-33.9%), eye protection (13.4%-21.3%) or hair protection (11.1%-12.5%). In the postpandemic era, endoscopists reported a plan to dramatically change their prepandemic practices and adopt current PPE mandates. Overall, the top 3 PPE changes endoscopists reported implementing were increasing routine use of surgical masks (50.6%-61.0%), face shields (32.5%-46.8%) and hair protection (32.5%-36.4%). Endoscopists also reported a plan to change gowns more frequently (13.0%-19.5%). Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the attitudes of many endoscopists regarding future PPE use in routine endoscopy. Ongoing studies comparing the rates of transmission of hospital-acquired infections in the setting of endoscopy are needed to develop a new postpandemic PPE consensus.