The impact of goggle-associated harms to health and working status of nurses during management of COVID-19

  1. He Xiao-huan
  2. Feng Yan-ru
  3. Li Gao-ming
  4. Pang Xiao-jiao
  5. Chen Ting
  6. Zhou Ya-li
  7. Zhang Hao
  8. Lang Jing
  9. Li Li-min
  10. Feng Li
  11. He Xin
  12. Zheng Wei
  13. Miao Hong-ming
  14. Wang Yong-hua
  15. Kang Xia

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Abstract

Background

To investigate the impact of goggles on their health and clinical practice during management of patients with COVID-19.

Methods

231 nurse practitioners were enrolled who worked in isolation region in designated hospitals to admit patients with COVID-19 in China. Demographic data, goggle-associated symptoms and underlying reasons, incidence of medical errors or exposures, the effects of fog in goggles on practice were all collected. Data were stratified and analyzed by age or working experience. Risk factors of goggle-associated medical errors were analyzed by multivariable logistical regression analysis.

Findings

Goggle-associated symptoms and foggy goggles widely presented in nurses. The most common symptoms were headache, skin pressure injury and dizziness. Headache, vomit and nausea were significantly fewer reported in nurses with longer working experience while rash occurred higher in this group. The underlying reasons included tightness of goggles, unsuitable design and uncomfortable materials. The working status of nurses with more working experience was less impacted by goggles. 11.3% nurses occurred medical exposures in clinical practice while 19.5% nurses made medical errors on patients. The risk factors for medical errors were time interval before adapting to goggle-associated discomforts, adjusting goggles and headache.

Interpretation

Goggle-associated symptoms and fog can highly impact the working status and contribute to medical errors during management of COVID-19. Increased the experience with working in PPE through adequate training and psychological education may benefit for relieving some symptoms and improving working status. Improvement of goggle design during productive process was strongly suggested to reduce incidence of discomforts and medical errors.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.11.20094854: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIACUC: Study design and participants: This study was approved by the Ethical Committee at General hospital of Western Theater Command.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analyses in this study were down with SPSS, version 18.0 (SPSS statistics for windows, Inc., Chicago, Ill., USA).
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.11.20094854v1 on medRxiv