Delayed healthcare seeking and prolonged illness in healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: a single-centre observational study
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Abstract
To describe a cohort of self-isolating healthcare workers (HCWs) with presumed COVID-19.
Design
A cross-sectional, single-centre study.
Setting
A large, teaching hospital based in Central London with tertiary infection services.
Participants
236 HCWs completed a survey distributed by internal staff email bulletin. 167 were women and 65 men.
Measures
Information on symptomatology, exposures and health-seeking behaviour were collected from participants by self-report.
Results
The 236 respondents reported illness compatible with COVID-19 and there was an increase in illness reporting during March 2020 Diagnostic swabs were not routinely performed. Cough (n=179, 75.8%), fever (n=138, 58.5%), breathlessness (n=84, 35.6%) were reported. Anosmia was reported in 42.2%. Fever generally settled within 1 week (n=110/138, 88%). Several respondents remained at home and did not seek formal medical attention despite reporting severe breathlessness and measuring hypoxia (n=5/9, 55.6%). 2 patients required hospital admission but recovered following oxygen therapy. 84 respondents (41.2%) required greater than the obligated 7 days off work and 9 required greater than 3 weeks off.
Conclusion
There was a significant increase in staff reporting illness compatible with possible COVID-19 during March 2020. Subsequent serology studies at the same hospital study site have confirmed sero-positivity for COVID-19 up to 45% by the end of April 2020 in frontline HCWs. The study revealed a concerning lack of healthcare seeking in respondents with significant red flag symptoms (severe breathlessness, hypoxia). This study also highlighted anosmia as a key symptom of COVID-19 early in the pandemic, prior to this symptom being more widely recognised as a feature of COVID-19.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.07.20094177: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: The Study was approved by the Audit and Research Committee at the Hospital of Tropical Diseases, UCLH [9], Anonymous data was exported to Microsoft Excel 2010 (Microsoft Corporation) and R (R Development Core Team 2008) for analysis. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources The Study was approved by the Audit and Research Committee at the Hospital of Tropical Diseases, UCLH [9], Anonymous data was exported to Microsoft Excel 2010 (Microsoft Corporation) and R (R Development Core Team 2008) for analysis. Microsoft Excelsuggested…SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.07.20094177: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: The Study was approved by the Audit and Research Committee at the Hospital of Tropical Diseases, UCLH [9], Anonymous data was exported to Microsoft Excel 2010 (Microsoft Corporation) and R (R Development Core Team 2008) for analysis. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources The Study was approved by the Audit and Research Committee at the Hospital of Tropical Diseases, UCLH [9], Anonymous data was exported to Microsoft Excel 2010 (Microsoft Corporation) and R (R Development Core Team 2008) for analysis. Microsoft Excelsuggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)R Development Coresuggested: (R Project for Statistical Computing, RRID:SCR_001905)Venn diagrams were generated using Venny 2.1.0 (https://bioinfoep.cnb.csic.es/tools/vennv/) [10] and BioVenn (https://www.biovenn.nl/) [11], BioVennsuggested: NoneResults 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.
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