Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul-Sep;14(3):370-375.
doi: 10.4103/aer.AER_53_20. Epub 2020 Oct 21.

A Cross-Sectional Study on Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Donning and Doffing of Personal Protective Equipment: An Institutional Survey of Health-Care Staff during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Kamakshi Garg  1 , Anju Grewal  1 , Rajesh Mahajan  2 , Samriti Kumari  1 , Aashita Mahajan  2
Affiliations

A Cross-Sectional Study on Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Donning and Doffing of Personal Protective Equipment: An Institutional Survey of Health-Care Staff during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Kamakshi Garg et al. Anesth Essays Res. 2020 Jul-Sep.

Abstract

Background: Personal protective equipment (PPE) is used to protect the health-care professional from bacterial, viral, or other hazards during this COVID-19 pandemic, and they should be made aware of proper usage of this equipment.

Aims: The aim was to evaluate how adequate knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) of health-care worker toward the appropriate use of PPE, which can prevent them and the community from virus contamination.

Methodology: This study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic in a span of approximately 50 days. This cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey was done in 155 health-care providers posted in the COVID-19 area.

Statistical analysis: Data were described in terms of range; mean ± standard deviation, frequencies (number of cases) and relative frequencies (percentages) as appropriate.

Results: Health-care workers (HCWs) were aware of the importance and criticality of donning and doffing procedure, but they lack the knowledge about dispersion of virus as 62% responded that virus dispersion occurs more during donning than doffing. Gaps were found in attitude as 51% of HCWs found it inconvenient to don PPE that they sometimes think of compromising their own safety. Nearly 33.5% of HCWs move out of the doffing area without removing gloves and N-95, which needs serious correction in their practice.

Conclusion: There were major gaps in KAP at institutional level among the health-care providers with regard to donning and doffing of PPE during the beginning of this pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; health-care worker; personal protective equipment.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Pie graph depicting the study population in the survey
Figure 2
Figure 2
Percentage of knowledge, attitude, and practices among health-care workers
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Kang J, O’Donnell JM, Colaianne B, Bircher N, Ren D, Smith KJ. Use of personal protective equipment among health care personnel: Results of clinical observations and simulations. Am J Infect Control. 2017;45:17–23. - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. Clinical Management of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection when Novel Coronavirus (nCoV) Infection is Suspected. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020. [Last accessed 2020 Jun 01]. Available from: https://www.who.int/publications-detail/clinical-management-of-severe-ac... .
    1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Infection Prevention and Control for COVID-19 in Healthcare Settings. 2020. [Last accessed on 2020 Jul 01]. Available from: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/infection-prevention-and... .
    1. Nguyen LH, Drew DA, Joshi AD, Guo CG, Ma W, Mehta RS, et al. Risk of COVID-19 among frontline healthcare workers and the general community: A prospective cohort study. medRxiv. 2020;2020:4111. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Public Health England. When to Use a Surgical Face Mask or FFP3 , Respirator. 2020. [Last accessed on 2020 Mar 26]. Available from: https://www.assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/u... .