Protect Healthcare Workers Research Articles

A randomised crossover trial of two flat-fold cup respirators: BYD DE2322 N95 versus Care Essentials MSK-002 P2.

The use of respiratory protection remains important in protecting health care workers from airborne pathogens such as viruses. Respirator supply is constantly changing with new models regularly becoming available. Health services should consider a broad range of factors when procuring respirators, including the results of quantitative fit testing in a representative sample of the workforce. Subjective comfort factors and compatibility with a variety of workplace tasks, such as suitability for staff use near magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) environments where relevant, should also be considered. This article compares the quantitative fit factors and user assessments for two styles of flat-fold cup respirators, Care Essentials (CE) MSK-002 P2 and BYD DE2322 N95. Quantitative fit tests (QNFT) were performed on 300 participants on each model of respirator in this randomised crossover trial. Participants then completed a questionnaire on their assessments of each respirator. The Care Essentials MSK-002 had a significantly higher quantitative fit test pass rate than the BYD DE2322 (57% vs 18%, p<0.001). There was no concordance between fit test pass rates for each model. Additionally, the Care Essentials MSK-002 achieved significantly higher scores on each of the responses in the subjective usability survey. It is recommended that the Care Essentials MSK-002 be made available for health care use due to higher QNFT pass rates, higher subjective usability assessment scores, plus its potential for use in MRI environments when compared to the BYD DE2322.

Safe and Sound: An Improvisational Theater-Based Curriculum and Behavioral Intervention to Address Violence in the Emergency Department

Background: Emergency department (ED) workplace violence has become increasingly prevalent in the United States, warranting the development of legislation, policy, and advocacy to protect health care workers. Solutions to address ED violence remain limited, and staff-oriented trainings often exist as short, one-time didactic sessions, which are not practical nor often applicable to the ED setting. There is a paucity of evidence-based interventions that incorporate behavioral-based training to adequately prepare staff for the complicated, multifactorial presentation of violence in the ED. Objective: This pilot study sought to assess the feasibility of an improvisational theater–based, simulation intervention for health care professionals to address ED violence. Methods: A longitudinal curriculum for ED violence was developed in collaboration with a committee of emergency medicine (EM) faculty, EM simulation experts, hospital security and police personnel, professional theater and improvisational performers, resident physicians, and medical students. This pilot intervention was tailored to new EM residents (n = 25) at a large, urban, academic medical center. Sessions were led by facilitators trained in group facilitation, simulation, and improvisation. Results: Participants felt the curriculum was helpful (82.6%), engaging (91.3%), applicable (73.9%), and enjoyable (82.6%). Participation primarily by residents identifying as female and people of color suggested the efficacy of creative expression and nontraditional modalities in engaging diverse learners. Ninety-five percent of participants expressed interest in future sessions. Conclusions: A multidisciplinary workplace violence intervention leveraging principles of improvisational theater, health equity, organizational psychology, and EM simulation may prove useful in preparing health care professionals for violence in the ED.

Assessment of Nurses’ Knowledge Attitude and Practice regarding Infection Controls in Intensive Care Unit at Hospitals in Kirkuk City-Iraq

Infection control are the cornerstone of infection prevention and control programs, especially healthcare-associated infection (HCAI), because of their importance in reducing mortality and morbidity for patients, protecting health care workers, reducing the financial burden for both the patient and health care facilities, as well as reducing the period of hospitalization of patients. The study's objective is to assess the nurse's knowledge, Attitude and practice regarding Infection Controls in Intensive Care Unit. A Quantitative(descriptive and observational) design are used in the current study, A nonprobability (convenient) sample of 68 nurses were participated from Intensive Care units, at Azadi Teaching , Kirkuk General and Maternity, Pediatric and Gynecology Hospital in Kirkuk city. The present study shows that Most of the participants were 25-29 years old, male, single, bachelors’ science of nursing degree, 1-2 years of experience in intensive care unit and not received any training course about infection control. The nurses had good levels of knowledge about infection control (95%), attitude (78.57%) and practice (66.67%). There were a significant differences between mean of nurses' knowledge about infection control and years of experience (p=0.013) and between nurses practice and who exposed to infection while working (p=0.027). But no significant differences were found between nurse’s attitude and all other socio-demographic variables. Continuing education, training and providing scientific booklet and publication about the infection control in intensive care unit are also recommended.

Mental burden and moral distress among oncologists and oncology nurses in Germany during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional survey

PurposeThere is evidence for mental burden and moral distress among healthcare workers during the pandemic. However, there is scarcity of analyses regarding possible correlations of mental burden and moral distress in this context. This study provides data to quantify mental burden and possible associations with moral distress among physicians and nurses working in oncology in Germany.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional online survey with physicians and nurses working in oncology in Germany between March and July 2021. Next to sociodemographic characteristics and working conditions, mental burden and moral distress were assessed using standardized instruments. Binary multivariate logistic regression using the enter method was performed in order to explore the relationship between mental burden and moral distress.Results121 physicians and 125 nurses were included in the study. Prevalence of clinically relevant depressive symptoms, anxiety, somatic symptoms, burnout symptoms and moral distress was 19.2, 14.5, 12.7, 46.0 and 34.7% in physicians and 41.4, 24.0, 46.8, 46.6 and 60.0% in nurses respectively. Mental burden was significantly associated with moral distress, being female/diverse, younger age < 40 and increase in workload. Nurses who felt sufficiently protected from COVID-19 reported significantly less moral distress.ConclusionTo improve pandemic resilience, there is a need to ensure safe working environment including psychosocial support. Further evidence on risk and protective factors for moral distress is needed to be able to develop and implement strategies to protect healthcare workers within and beyond the pandemic.

Legal Protection of Health Care Workers Regarding Workplace Violence During Pandemic COVID-19

Work place violence against health care workers has happened in all over the world and begun to be a global phenomenone. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, violence against health care workers increase rapidly. This was caused by many factors and unfortunately, health care workers feel helpless when this happened. Therefore, legal protection towards health care workers in case of work place violance is needed. In Indonesia legal system, there are some law and regulations that regulated protection of health care workers. Health care workers basically will be protected by law when they carry on their duty and any violence that was made toward them during their work can be prosecuted. Beside of protection by the law, both of Government and Health Institution need to make a prevention scheme to decrease work place violance toward health care workers.

Effect of the cooling clothing integrating with phase change material on the thermal comfort of healthcare workers with personal protective equipment during the COVID-19

Wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is essential to protect healthcare workers during the COVID-19, but the traditional cooling methods do not meet the requirements of epidemic prevention during the COVID-19. Therefore, the cooling clothing integrated with phase change material (PCM-CC) was proposed for healthcare workers performing nucleic acid sample collection outdoors. Human experiments and subjective questionnaires were used to test the effect of wearing PCM-CC on the thermal sensations of healthcare workers and to analyze the effectiveness of PCM-CC in relieving thermal stress and thereby, improving the thermal comfort of healthcare workers. Results showed that wearing PCM-CC was effective in alleviating various heat symptoms associated with wearing PPE in a hot-temperature environment. Wearing PCM-CC reduced head and facial discomfort by 25% and 41% under the 26 °C thermal environment, while it improved the mean thermal sensation vote (TSV) values by 0.71 and 1.85 under the 26 °C and 32 °C thermal environments, respectively, and made the mean TSV value close to the neutral value. Meanwhile, wearing PCM-CC reduced mean skin temperatures by 0.65 °C, and the pronounced cooling effect was found in the chest. Wearing PCM-CC could be an effective thermoregulation measure to refine the thermal comfort of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nurse, Give Me the News! Understanding Support for and Opposition to a COVID-19 Health Screening System.

Helping the sick and protecting the vulnerable has long been the credo of the health profession. In response to the coronavirus-disease-2019 (COVID-19 pandemic), hospitals and healthcare institutions have rapidly employed public health measures to mitigate patient and staff infection. This paper investigates staff and visitor responses to the COVID-19 eGate health screening system; a self-service technology (SST) which aims to protect health care workers and facilities from COVID-19. Our study evaluates the in situ deployment of the eGate, and employs a System Usability Scale (SUS) and questionnaire (n = 220) to understand staff and visitor's acceptance of the eGate. In detailing the themes relevant to those who advocate for the system and those who oppose it, we contribute towards a more detailed understanding of the use and non-use of health-screening SSTs. We conclude with a series of considerations for the design of future interactive screening systems within hospitals.

Design and quantitative evaluation of 'Aerosol Bio-Containment Device (ABCD)' for reducing aerosol exposure during infectious aerosol-generating events.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic renewed interest in infectious aerosols and reducing risk of airborne respiratory pathogen transmission, prompting development of devices to protect healthcare workers during airway procedures. However, there are no standard methods for assessing the efficacy of particle containment with these protective devices. We designed and built an aerosol bio-containment device (ABCD) to contain and remove aerosol via an external suction system and tested the aerosol containment of the device in an environmental chamber using a novel, quantitative assessment method. The ABCD exhibited a strong ability to control aerosol exposure in experimental and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulated scenarios with appropriate suction use and maintenance of device seals. Using a log-risk-reduction framework, we assessed device containment efficacy and showed that, when combined with other protective equipment, the ABCD can significantly reduce airborne clinical exposure. We propose this type of quantitative analysis serves as a basis for rating efficacy of aerosol protective enclosures.

Protecting Healthcare Workers on the Frontline of the COVID-19 Pandemic: interventions and observations from a Prospective Study

Protecting Healthcare Workers on the Frontline of the COVID-19 Pandemic: interventions and observations from a Prospective Study

Effect of Wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 Treatment on Blood Culture Contamination: Implication for Optimal PPE Strategies.

The personal protective equipment (PPE) used to minimize exposure to hazards can hinder healthcare workers from performing sophisticated procedures. We retrospectively reviewed 77,535 blood cultures (202,012 pairs) performed in 28,502 patients from January 2020 to April 2022. The contamination rate of all blood cultures was significantly elevated in the coronavirus disease 2019 ward at 4.68%, compared to intensive care units at 2.56%, emergency rooms at 1.13%, hematology wards at 1.08%, and general wards at 1.07% (All of P < 0.001). This finding implies that wearing PPE might interfere with adherence to the aseptic technique. Therefore, a new PPE policy is needed that considers the balance between protecting healthcare workers and medical practices.

COVID-19: Protecting Health-Care Workers in South Korea – ADDENDUM

An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Compliance of Physicians with Standard Precautions of Handling Patients with Infectious Respiratory Disease

Background: Standard precautions (SPs) are the minimum infection prevention practices that aim to protect Health care workers (HCWs) including physicians and prevent them from transmitting the infections to their patients. Purpose: To assess the level of compliance of physicians with standard precautions of handling patients with infectious respiratory disease. Method: A cross sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted in two tertiary level hospitals named M Abdur Rahim Medical College and Hospital, Dinajpur, Bangladesh and Rajshahi Medical College and Hospital, Rajshahi, Bangladesh to assess the level of compliance of physicians with standard precautions. Purposive sampling technique was applied as per inclusion criteria and data was collected by face to face interview from 285 physicians. Statistical analysis of the results was done by SPSS and a p value less than 0.05 was considered as significant. Result: The study revealed that maximum physicians (76.5%) handling patients with infectious respiratory disease had a moderate level of compliance with standard precautions. 78.6% of the physicians had moderate level of awareness about standard precautions. Only 20.35% of the physicians had training on infection control. 94.4% of the respondents didn’t know the component of standard precaution and most of the physicians were not aware of the sequence of wearing and removing the different components of PPEs. Conclusion: The study result implies that with increased awareness, the compliance of the physicians with standard precautions increased. The main reasons of non-compliance with standard precautions were found to be lack of resources, lack of regular training and excess workload.

Transmission of monkeypox virus through the saliva and air that need careful management.

Transmission of monkeypox virus through the saliva and air that need careful management.

Keeping Healthcare Workers Safe Through Policy Initiatives

Keeping Healthcare Workers Safe Through Policy Initiatives

Implementation Of Universal Precaution Policy On Class I Nurses In Hospital X

Universal precaution is a strategy to protect health care workers to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases in all health facilities. The latest data on HAIs at Hospital X shows that the highest number of HAIs occurs in class I inpatient rooms at 3.8%. This study aims to describe the implementation of the universal precaution policy on class I inpatient nurses at Hospital X. Informants consisted of nurses from Hospital X including IPCN, class I inpatient nurses, IPCLN ICU rooms, and room leader of class I inpatient rooms. The result of this study is that all informants have understood the purpose of the universal precaution policy at Hospital X, but cannot mention the full policy objectives. Human resources, funds, and facilities at Hospital X have fulfilled the need for implementing universal precaution policies. Communication between implementing parties is good, but there are no sanctions and rewards. The available competencies are sufficient. Supervision in the implementation of this policy is carried out by the KPPI (Infection Prevention and Control Committee) and tiered supervision that has been running well. Class I inpatient nurse at Hospital X has good cognition on universal precaution points. KPPI Hospital X needs to conduct upgrading to refresh the cognition of officers regarding the universal precaution policy. It is necessary to have a separate budget post for KPPI, as well as periodic awards for employees of Hospital X.

Care and protection for healthcare workers during a COVID-19: a descriptive qualitative study in Indonesia

&lt;p&gt;This study aimed to explore the perspectives of care and protection of healthcare workers during the pandemic COVID-19 using a descriptive qualitative study in Indonesia. This study used a qualitative descriptive approach in COVID-19 National Referral Hospitals. Purposive sampling was used to collect the sample. There were 45 respondents, with 22 men and 23 women taking part in this study. The qualitative data were analyzed using the content analysis. Three themes that emerge from the data analysis: health protection, legal protection, and incentive schemes. Health protection including calculation of the medical team's workload and lack of a systematic procedure for medical team quarantine. There was a lack of legal basis for medical practice in long-term disaster services. Dimension of incentive scheme, including incentives shift from rewards to demands, changes in incentive regulations, and discrepancy in incentive calculation. By stressing protection and rewards for each level of the medical profession, it is hoped to boost motivation in actively participating and supporting the service of COVID-19 patients in critical conditions across Indonesia.&lt;/p&gt;

Knowledge, Attitude, And Practice Regarding Use of Face Mask Among Health Care Workers as a Measure of Covid-19 Infection Prevention in Federal Medical Centre, Asaba, Delta State Nigeria

Introduction: Effective use of Face mask is very important to protect healthcare workers (HCWs) against respiratory hazards including COVID-19.Several countries are presently using face masks in their infection control plans, besides, incorrect use and disposal may actually increase the rate of transmission. The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge, attitude, and practices of healthcare workers (HCWs) regarding the use of face mask as a measure to COVID-19 infection prevention. Materials and Methods: This survey was conducted by interviewing 345 HCWs using a questionnaire consisting of the demographic characteristics, questions regarding the knowledge, attitude, and practices of use of face mask. Each correct answer was scored 1 and each incorrect answer scored 0. The total number of questions were 25; 10 for Knowledge, 8 for Practice and 7 for Attitude of heath care workers on the use of face mask. The final aggregate score was calculated and then labeled according to the percentage of correct responses as good &gt;50% and poor &lt; 50% for Knowledge, Practice and Attitude of health care workers on use of face mask. Data were gathered, analyzed using SPSS software version 25. Results: A total of 345 participants with a mean age of 36.0 years (108 males and 237 females) were included in the study. The Health care workers were good in Knowledge 324 (93.9%), attitude 250 (72.5%), and practice 282(81.7%) regarding use of face mask. However clinical HCW had good knowledge(X2 = 13.84, P value = 0.001, 95% CI= 0.08-0.51) and attitude(X2= 13.80, p value = 0.0001, 95% CI=0.21-0.6) of use of face mask than Non Clinical HCW when compared with their practice(X2=1.10, p value = 0.30, 95 % CI=0.40-1.35) Conclusions: Knowledge, attitude of HCWs regarding the use of face masks were found to be adequate. but moderate-to-poor level of practice regarding the use of face mask. HCWs and general public to create awareness regarding the proper use of face mask by utilizing all social media. Provision of user friendly mask by government to the hospitals and at affordable rate to the public in order to improve their level of practice in wearing the masks.

Medical Residents' Behaviours toward Compulsory COVID-19 Vaccination in a Tertiary Hospital in Italy.

To maintain safety conditions in the provision of care and assistance, and to protect healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients, the Italian government required compulsory COVID-19 vaccination for HCWs, including medical residents (MRs). The aim of this study was to assess COVID-19 vaccination coverage in MRs in a large tertiary hospital in Italy, before and after the introduction of compulsory vaccination, according to demographic characteristics and specific residency. A database on COVID-19 vaccination status and infection of resident medical doctors was created. Descriptive statistics and logistic regressions were carried out on the data. A total of 1894 MRs were included in the study. Being vaccinated in the same hospital as the residency program was significantly related to the year of residency and being enrolled in a frontline residency. A significant association between compliance with the compulsory primary cycle vaccination and vaccination in the hospital residency was observed. Being enrolled in the second, third, and last years of residency, and in a frontline residency, were predictive of being vaccinated in the residency hospital. Almost 100% of the MRs participating in the study were vaccinated against COVID-19. Compulsory vaccination of HCWs, alongside greater and clearer information about the risks and benefits of vaccination, represents an important booster to ensure public health and to promote quality and safety of care.

Comparative Effectiveness of Mask Type in Preventing SARS-CoV-2 in Health Care Workers: Uncertainty Persists.

Comparative Effectiveness of Mask Type in Preventing SARS-CoV-2 in Health Care Workers: Uncertainty Persists.

Conflict, healthcare and professional perseverance: A qualitative study in a remote hospital in an Anglophone Region of Cameroon.

Armed conflicts are a major contributor to global disease burden owing to their deleterious effects on health and healthcare delivery. The Anglophone crisis in Cameroon is one of the ongoing conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa and has led to massive displacement of healthcare workers (HCWs). However, some HCWs have stayed back and continued working. An understanding of their experiences, perspectives and professional perseverance is lacking. We designed a phenomenological study using Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews to: understand the experiences of 12 HCWs in a remote hospital in the North West region of Cameroon with armed groups; evaluate how it affects healthcare delivery from HCWs perspective and examine HCWs coping mechanisms during the conflict with a view of informing HCW protection policies in conflict zones. Results revealed that HCWs go through all forms of violence including threats, assaults and murders. Overall insecurity and shortage of health personnel were major barriers to healthcare delivery which contributed to underutilization of healthcare services. Participants observed an increase in complications due to malaria, malnutrition and a rise in maternal and infant mortality. The hospital management and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) played an essential role in HCWs adaptation to the crisis. Nevertheless they unanimously advocated for a cease fire to end the conflict. In the meantime, passion for their job was the main motivating factor to stay at work.