• Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · May 2013

    Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study

    A randomized clinical trial of three options for N95 respirators and medical masks in health workers.

    • C Raina MacIntyre, Quanyi Wang, Holly Seale, Peng Yang, Weixian Shi, Zhanhai Gao, Bayzid Rahman, Yi Zhang, Xiaoli Wang, Anthony T Newall, Anita Heywood, and Dominic E Dwyer.
    • School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. r.macintyre@unsw.edu.au
    • Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med.. 2013 May 1;187(9):960-6.

    RationaleWe compared three policy options for the use of medical masks and N95 respirators in healthcare workers (HCWs).ObjectivesA cluster randomized clinical trial of 1,669 hospital-based HCWs in Beijing, China in the winter of 2009-2010.MethodsParticipants were randomized to medical masks, N95 respirators, or targeted use of N95 respirators while doing high-risk procedures or barrier nursing. Outcomes included clinical respiratory illness (CRI) and laboratory-confirmed respiratory pathogens in symptomatic subjects.Measurements And Main ResultsThe rate of CRI was highest in the medical mask arm (98 of 572; 17%), followed by the targeted N95 arm (61 of 516; 11.8%), and the N95 arm (42 of 581; 7.2%) (P < 0.05). Bacterial respiratory tract colonization in subjects with CRI was highest in the medical mask arm (14.7%; 84 of 572), followed by the targeted N95 arm (10.1%; 52 of 516), and lowest in the N95 arm (6.2%; 36 of 581) (P = 0.02). After adjusting for confounders, only continuous use of N95 remained significant against CRI and bacterial colonization, and for just CRI compared with targeted N95 use. Targeted N95 use was not superior to medical masks.ConclusionsContinuous use of N95 respirators was more efficacious against CRI than intermittent use of N95 or medical masks. Most policies for HCWs recommend use of medical masks alone or targeted N95 respirator use. Continuous use of N95s resulted in significantly lower rates of bacterial colonization, a novel finding that points to more research on the clinical significance of bacterial infection in symptomatic HCWs. This study provides further data to inform occupational policy options for HCWs. Clinical trial registered with Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry http://www.anzctr.org.au (ACTRN 12609000778280).

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