ERS member survey on COVID-19 symptomatology and personal protection: a construct to predict early COVID-19 disease

Abstract

Background: This paper reports on a survey performed amongst members of the European Rhinologic Society (ERS) in relation to COVID-19. The survey audited several items, such as (onset of) symptoms that could be a sign of COVID-19, number of patients seen with face-to-face consultation in an outpatient setting, surgeries done, whether personal protective equipment was used, and some personal data including country of practice. Results: Of the 507 respondents, 304 reported one or more complaints (60%); the most common were sore throat, headache, fatigue, stuffy nose and a dry cough. The pattern of complaints of cases tested for COVID-19 was used to create a symptom-based diagnostic construct for COVID-19. Two possibilities were used: (1) anosmia as the only complaint, or combined with either fever and/or shortness of breath (2) a combination of fever, headache, fatigue, dry cough, and coughing up sputum / thick phlegm from the lungs. With these two constructs most patients were adequately classified. A limited percentage of the respondents used/could use adequate personal protection equipment (PPE). In the respondents who were tested for COVID, none with a positive test reported adequate protection 75-100% of the time and 69% no adequate protection at all. Of those with a negative test only 26% reported no protection. Conclusion: This study underlines the importance of adequate protection for ENT surgeons, and especially rhinologists. Furthermore, anosmia is again confirmed as an important marker of COVID-19.

Keywords

• covid-19
• anosmia
• personal protection
• early signs of disease