Risk of SARS-CoV-2 exposure among hospital healthcare workers in relation to patient contact and type of care

  1. Susanna Klevebro
  2. Fuad Bahram
  3. K. Miriam Elfström
  4. Ulrika Hellberg
  5. Sophia Hober
  6. Simon Kebede Merid
  7. Inger Kull
  8. Peter Nilsson
  9. Per Tornvall
  10. Gang Wang
  11. Kalle Conneryd Lundgren
  12. Sari Ponzer
  13. Joakim Dillner
  14. Erik Melén

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Abstract

We aimed to assess prevalence of IgG antibodies to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) and factors associated with seropositivity in a large cohort of healthcare workers (HCWs).

Methods:

From 11 May until 11 June 2020, 3981 HCWs at a large Swedish emergency care hospital provided serum samples and questionnaire data. Presence of IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 was measured as an indicator of SARS-CoV-2 exposure.

Results:

The total seroprevalence was 18% and increased during the study period. Among the seropositive HCWs, 11% had been entirely asymptomatic. Participants who worked with COVID-19 patients had higher odds for seropositivity: adjusted odds ratio 1.96 (95% confidence intervals 1.59–2.42). HCWs from three of the departments managing COVID-19 patients had significantly higher seroprevalences, whereas the prevalence among HCWs from the intensive care unit (also managing COVID-19 patients) was significantly lower.

Conclusions:

HCWs in contact with SARS-CoV-2 infected patients had a variable, but on average higher, likelihood for SARS-CoV-2 infections.

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  1. Version published to 10.1177/14034948211022434
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.28.21250664: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Statistical analyses were performed in R.8 The study was approved by the Stockholm Ethical Review Board (dnr 2020-0162 and 2020-02724).
    Consent: All participants provided written informed consent and serology testing results were conveyed to participants.
    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:
    Current workplace was self-reported, and a limitation of this study is that we were not able to fully distinguish primary (regular) workplace from workplace during the period of interest. Furthermore, we did not collect information regarding use of protective equipment or other potential exposures such as contact with infected persons outside work or with infected HCWs at work. The number of COVID-19 patients admitted to our hospital peaked in the weeks before this study. The fact that the seroprevalences increased with calendar time suggests that the first wave of the epidemic was still ongoing during the time of this study. However, PCR testing for the virus was not performed.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).

    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

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.01.28.21250664v1 on medRxiv