Effects of The Long-Time Wearing of Gloves by Health Care Workers Managing Covid-19 Assessed by Electrodermal Activity: A Pilot Study

Haval Y Yacoob Aldosky,Dindar S Bari,Ørjan Grøttem Martinsen

doi:10.3991/ijoe.v17i12.23439

Abstract

Continues wearing gloves is a crucial problem among health care workers treating patients with coronavirus (COVID-19) infection that may cause skin complications. In the present study, the skin conductance (SC), skin potential (SP) and skin susceptance (SS) were used to identify the effects of long-term wearing gloves among health care workers managing COVID-19. The experimental procedure was repeated 30 times on three subjects recruited as volunteers to wear gloves for 4 hours. The baseline of parameters SC, SP, and SS were recorded at normal conditions without wearing the glove at zero time (To). The parameters were again recorded in the cases of glove-wearing with and without zinc oxide ointment (ZnO) for the same period. Noticeable differences were found in each of SC, SP and SS for subjects who wore gloves when compared to the baseline for 4 h. Results also showed significant differences in each of SP and SS during the same period with applying ZnO comparing to wearing gloves without applying ZnO. The results show that skin hydration is significantly improved by using ZnO. However, changing gloves at least every four hours of continuous wearing is recommended.

Highlights

Health professions preventing and controlling Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) are prone to skin and mucous membrane injury, which may cause acute and chronic dermatitis, secondary infection, and aggravation of underlying skin diseases [1]
This study aims to estimate the effects of wearing gloves for a long duration for health care workers managing COVID-19 in two different situations depending on the skin hydration assessing by skin conductance (SC), SS and skin potential (SP)
Our results demonstrate that the skin conductance and susceptance were remarkably increased by wearing single layer gloves for 4 hours

Summary

Introduction

Health professions preventing and controlling Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) are prone to skin and mucous membrane injury, which may cause acute and chronic dermatitis, secondary infection, and aggravation of underlying skin diseases [1]. P revious studies have revealed that hand eczema is quite common in health care workers and the risk factors include frequent hand hygiene and wearing gloves for a long time. It is axiomatic that gloves fuel a feeling deep within health care workers of self-protection. The major problem is that this feeling of extra protection causes them to wear gloves for longer than they should and perform hand hygiene less frequently than they should. A study indicated that applying hand cream with long-term use of gloves could reverse maceration [1]. As far as we know, no previous research has identified the effects of long-term wearing gloves to prevent a potential skin problem among health care workers managing COVID-19. EDA is utilized within various fields such as in the fields of psychophysiology, anesthesia, neurology, and they are used for stress detection, sweating, and skin hydration estimations [4]

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