Online survey on healthcare skin reactions for wearing medical-grade protective equipment against COVID-19 in Hubei Province, China

Abstract

With the spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 globally, more than 40,000 healthcare staff rushed to Wuhan, Hubei Province to fight against this threatening disease. All staff had to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) for several hours when caring for patients, which resulted in adverse skin reactions and injuries. In this study, we used an online questionnaire to collect the self-reported skin damages among the first-line medical staff in the epidemic. The questionnaire was designed by four front-line wound care nurses and then revised through Delphi consultants. Items mainly focused on the adverse skin reactions and preventive strategies. The survey was distributed through phone application from March 15th to March 20th and received 275 responses in total. The prevalence of skin reactions (212, 77.09%) was high in both head and hands. The common clinical symptoms of skin reactions were redness, device-like mark, and burning pain in face; and dryness, dermatitis, and itch/irritation in hands. Three risk factors included gender, level of protection, and daily wearing time of PPE were identified that caused skin reactions among medical staff. 150 of 275 (54.55%) participants took preventive strategies like prophylactic dressings, however, more than 75% users had little knowledge about dressings. We suggest the frontline staff strengthened the protection of skin integrity and reduced the prevalence of adverse skin reactions after professional education.