The successful introduction of a hand dermatitis clinic to reduce occupational dermatoses during the covid-19 pandemic

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Abstract

The SARS-Co-V pandemic has necessitated strict hand hygiene practices in healthcare settings. An increased incidence of staff presentations of occupational dermatitis in our institutions prompted the establishment of a drop-in access daily hand dermatitis clinic.

Objective

to document the incidence and severity of cases of occupational dermatitis arising in healthcare workers during the first wave of the pandemic, and to reduce the impact of this with early assessment and treatment.

Methods

an open-access daily staff clinic run by dermatologists was established, and demographic and clinical data collected from each clinical encounter.

Results

532 staff attended the clinic over a 6 week period. This compared to 7 staff presenting to occupational health over the same period in 2019. The majority were females 81%,and ward based 51%. ITU and A&E staff represented 15%. The prevalence of occupational hand dermatitis was 88%. 52% were classed as mild, 26% as moderate 26% and 9% severe/very severe.

Conclusions

the pandemic and associated hand hygiene practices have led to a substantial increase in presentations of occupational hand dermatitis. A drop-in clinic proved an effective way of allowing staff to access treatment in a timely fashion.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.04.21250767: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    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: 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.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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