Biosafety recommendations to Primary Health Care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: analysis of technical documents from Brazil, São Paulo and Amazonas regarding the PPE

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic required the adoption of safe biosafety attitudes for healthcare professionals. Objective: To analyze the information’s accuracy of the Brazil’s Contingency Plan and technical documents for Primary Health Care (PHC) provided by the Brazilian National Health System (hereby SUS) as well as São Paulo and Amazonas State, regarding biosafety for health professionals focusing on protective personal equipment. Method: Exploratory, qualitative research on biosafety management with documentary analysis aimed at Primary Health Care professionals with free access on the internet whose documentary origin was: Municipal Health Bureaus of Manaus and São Paulo Cities; Health State Departments of Amazonas and São Paulo States; Health Ministry and National Health Surveillance Agency, between February and May 2020. The accuracy of the instructions was assessed by a structured scoreboard using a checklist. Results: Twenty technical documents for biosafety were analyzed. Ninety-five percent did not provide details or direct indication of practical actions for using protective personal equipment. Among the documents, 55% had inaccurate information. Regarding the visual organization, 80% had no summary. The documents did not present a summary of the previous evidence, even the updated ones. Conclusions: This study assessed the quality of documents for decision-making in Primary Health Care in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic verifying the lack of precise guidelines for the use of protective personal equipment. The weaknesses of the documents analyzed such as the lack of summary without synthesis of previous evidence without effective visual communication compromise the quality of the guidelines making decision making difficult.