Abstract
Personal protective equipment (PPE) can potentiate heat stress, which may have a negative impact on the wearer's performance, safety and well-being. In view of this, a survey was distributed to healthcare workers (HCWs) required to wear PPE during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in the UK to evaluate perceived levels of heat stress and its consequences. Respondents reported experiencing several heat-related illness symptoms, and heat stress impaired both cognitive and physical performance. The majority of respondents stated that wearing PPE made their job more difficult. These, and additional, responses suggest that modification to current working practices is required urgently to improve the resilience of HCWs to wearing PPE during pandemics.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 185-188 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Journal of Hospital Infection |
| Volume | 108 |
| Early online date | 7 Dec 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2021 |
Bibliographical note
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Hospital Infection. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Hospital Infection, 108, (2021)DOI: 10.1016/j.jhin.2020.11.027
© 2020, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Keywords
- COVID-19
- Extreme environments
- Healthcare workers
- Heat stress
- Heat-related illness
- Personal protective equipment
- SARS-CoV-2
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Microbiology (medical)
- Infectious Diseases
