Skin problems among nurses due to personal protective equipment: A cross-sectional study from COVID-19 hospital

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Nursing staff are at much greater risk of infection due to the exposure to the highly infectious bodily fluids and droplet nuclei and needed the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) to reduce the transmission risk. AIM: The present study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of skin injury and its type due to PPE usage nursing staff. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted after obtaining the institutional ethical approval in dedicated COVID-19 hospital for a period of 4 months among 144 nursing staff wearing Grade 2 and 3 PPE kit. Study subjects were approached through social networking websites and survey questionnaire (Google Forms) according to relevant guides; research literature was used for collecting the details regarding baseline, duty, and skin injury characterization. Chi-square analysis was used to find the association between dependent and independent variables and an association was significant for P < 0.05. RESULTS: It was observed that 54.7% of nursing staff were working for 6 or more hours and 16.5% of subjects were wearing the PPE kit for 5 or more hours per day. 86.3% of subjects have suffered from skin injury after PPE usage. The most common symptoms/signs for the skin injury occurred were indentation and pain on back of ears (61.9%). CONCLUSION: The skin injuries of PPE among the nursing staff may result in reduced morale for overloaded work and made them anxious, so an effective preventive measure should be adopted.

Keywords

• facial itching
• facial rashes
• mask
• protective clothing
• skin chapping