Articles: personal-protective-equipment.
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Frontiers in psychiatry · Jan 2020
Perceived Risk and Protection From Infection and Depressive Symptoms Among Healthcare Workers in Mainland China and Hong Kong During COVID-19.
Psychological health among healthcare workers (HCWs) has become a major concern since the COVID-19 outbreak. HCWs perceived risks of contracting COVID-19, in relation to depression were investigated. It was hypothesized that perceived high risk of contracting COVID-19 (close contact with cases, inadequate provision of personal protective equipment, insufficient infection control training, and presence of symptoms) would be significant predictors of depression. ⋯ The strongest significant risk factors for depression, after adjustment, were HCWs who reported the greatest extent of feeling susceptible to contracting COVID-19 and those who reported the greatest difficulty obtaining face masks. HCWs whose family/peers greatly encouraged face mask use had lower prevalence of depression. Access to adequate supplies of personal protective equipment is essential for the psychological health of HCWs working in stressful environments, through potentially easing their perceptions of vulnerability to COVID-19.
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IEEE J Transl Eng Health Med · Jan 2020
Intubation Containment System for Improved Protection From Aerosolized Particles During Airway Management.
Worldwide efforts to protect front line providers performing endotracheal intubation during the COVID-19 pandemic have led to innovative devices. Authors evaluated the aerosol containment effectiveness of a novel intubation aerosol containment system (IACS) compared with a recently promoted intubation box and no protective barrier. ⋯ The IACS with integrated sleeves and plastic drape appears to offer superior protection for the laryngoscopist and assistant providers from aerosolized particles.
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During the course of the Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, Italy has reported one of the highest number of infections. Nearly ten percent of reported coronavirus infections in Italy occurred in healthcare workers. This study aimed to understand physicians' access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and to information about their use, risk perception and strategies adopted to prevent contracting the infection. ⋯ Results from this rapid survey indicate that while ramping up supplies on PPE for healthcare workers is certainly of mandatory importance, adequate training and clear instructions are just as important.
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Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is required to safely work with biological agents of bacterial (i.e. Mycobacterium tuberculosis) or viral origin (Ebola and SARS). COVID-19 pandemic especially has created unforeseen public health challenges including a global shortage of PPE needed for the safety of health care workers (HCWs). Although sufficient stocks of PPE are currently available, their critical shortage may develop soon due to increase in demand and depletion of existing supply lines. To empower our HCWs and ensure their continued protection, proactive measures are urgently required to develop procedures to safely decontaminate the PPEs to allow their "selective reuse" during contingency situations. ⋯ Our study, therefore, successfully establishes the utility of VHP to effectively disinfect PPE for a possible reuse as per the requirements. VHP treatment did not damage coveralls, cause physical deformity and also did not alter fabric architecture of melt blown layer. We observed that disinfection process was successful consistently and therefore believe that the VHP-based decontamination model will have a universal applicability and utility. This process can be easily and economically scaled up and can be instrumental in easing global PPE shortages in any biosafety facility or in health care settings during pandemic situation such as COVID-19.
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Wearing face masks is highly recommended to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission in health care workers and for the general public. The demand for high quality face masks has seen an upsurge in the recent times, leading to exploration of alternative economic and easily available options, without compromising on the quality. Particle removal from air in terms of capture efficiency of the filter media or the face mask is a crucial parameter for testing and quality assurance. ⋯ We found that 60 GSM face mask had particle capture efficiency of 94% for total particles greater than 0.3 microns and this capture efficiency was maintained even after sterilisation with ETO and thermal treatment. The cost of producing these masks was 30 US cents/mask at our institute. Our study suggests that sterilization wrap material made of non-woven polypropylene spunbond-meltblown-spunbond (SMS) fibres could be an appropriate readily available inexpensive material for making face masks or N95 respirators.