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. 2021 Mar 1;63(3):221-225.
doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000002123.

Personal Protective Equipment in COVID-19: Impacts on Health Performance, Work-Related Injuries, and Measures for Prevention

Xiaoqin Duan  1 , Hongzhi Sun, Yuxuan He, Junling Yang, Xinming Li, Kritika Taparia, Bin Zheng
Affiliations

Personal Protective Equipment in COVID-19: Impacts on Health Performance, Work-Related Injuries, and Measures for Prevention

Xiaoqin Duan et al. J Occup Environ Med. .

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.

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Conflict of interest statement

Zheng, Duan, Sun, He, Yang, Li, and Taparia have no relationships/conditions/circumstances that present potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Negative impacts on performance (A) and incidence of discomfort (B) related to PPE reported by the frontline HCPs in COVID-19 pandemic. HCP, healthcare providers; PPE, personal protective equipment.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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