Occupational exposure is an important source of coronavirus transmission among
health professionals. The objective of this study is to review the literature on
the clinical and epidemiological profile of health professionals infected by
COVID-19. An integrative review was conducted based on searches of the LILACS,
Medline, and PubMed databases using the following terms: medical workers,
healthcare workers, healthcare personnel, and healthcare professionals combined
with COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, 2019-nCoV, n-CoV, and coronavirus, with the Boolean
operators “AND” and “OR”. A total of 710 publications were identified, 18 of
which were selected for the review, totaling 2,208 infected health professionals
in eight countries. It was observed that 67.4% (n = 1,489) of these
professionals were women, and 39.4% of the population described in the 15
studies that provided information on occupation (n = 811) were nurses. Seven
publications (n = 553) reported severity, among which the most prevalent
category was mild/common (47.3% of cases; n = 213). The most common
comorbidities were migraine (9.6%, n = 87 of 906), systemic arterial
hypertension (5.5%, n = 78 of 1,427), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
(3.7%, n = 52 of 1,399). The most common symptoms were coughing (34.3%, n = 597
of 1,740), headache (36.8%, n = 582 of 1,583), and myalgia (31.6%, n = 544 of
1,720). The most frequent radiological findings were bilateral involvement
(34.5%, n = 139 of 403), ground glass (49%, n = 101 of 206), and bilateral
pneumonia (77.4%, n = 65 of 84). The study found that the most often affected
health professionals were female nursing professionals, the main symptom was
coughing, and the most frequent comorbidity was migraine. The study’s limitation
is the small sample. There is a need for more studies with these
professionals.
