Personal protective equipment preparedness in Asia-Pacific intensive care units during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: A multinational survey

  1. Arvind Rajamani
  2. Ashwin Subramaniam
  3. Kiran Shekar
  4. Jumana Haji
  5. Jinghang Luo
  6. Shailesh Bihari
  7. Wai Tat Wong
  8. Navya Gullapalli
  9. Markus Renner
  10. Claudia Maria Alcancia
  11. Kollengode Ramanathan

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Abstract

No abstract available

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  1. Version published to 10.1016/j.aucc.2020.09.006
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.06.20093724: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Participant population and distribution of the survey: Following ethical approval (approval number 2020/ETH00705) from local Human Research Ethics Committee, the survey weblink was distributed by email, text message and WhatsApp™ to qualified intensivists in Australia, New Zealand (NZ), Singapore, Hong Kong (HK), India and Philippines.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Strengths and weaknesses: The strengths of this survey included a robust process to develop the questionnaire. Responses were limited to one intensivist/ICU; non-medical respondents were excluded to keep the respondents homogeneous. Both well-resourced and less-resourced countries were included. Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the response rate in all countries was high, except India, where responses were obtained widely from 23/27 states. Our study has several limitations. Inherent to any survey, the submissions were self-declared statements without independent corroboration. Given the rapid evolution of PPE-preparedness, it is possible that the issues identified during the survey have already been addressed. The random selection of participants, coupled with the exclusion of non-medical HCWs, may induce reporting bias. The survey did not evaluate other AGPs like prone positioning, cardiac arrest, tracheostomy and bronchoscopies, partly due to unresolved ethical dilemmas (cardiac arrest) and partly to ensure feasibility of completion. The choice of the broad and pragmatic WHO guideline over ICU-specific guidelines (ANZICS) as the reference standard for ICU PPE practice is questionable but was done since it is more applicable to a multinational setting and does have a section on PPE for AGPs. Finally, despite the wide geographical spread of respondents, the low response rate in India and the small number of Philippines ICUs may limit the applicability of the resul...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.06.20093724v1 on medRxiv