A survey of personal protective equipment use among US otolaryngologists during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objective Describe current practices and challenges in personal protective equipment (PPE) use among US otolaryngologists during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study design Online survey. Setting Academic and non-academic healthcare institutions. Subjects and methods Subjects included US otolaryngology physicians. Emails were sent on April 17, 2020 to program coordinators at 121 residency programs, who were requested to forward the email to program directors for distribution. Further recruitment occurred through snowball recruitment. The survey was closed on June 15, 2020. Results Sixty-one participants completed the survey. 95.1% reported routine access to full PPE (N95 ± powered air purifying respirator [PAPR], gown, gloves, eye protection) for aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs) in COVID-19 patients, while 68.9% had routine access to full PPE for AGPs in patients without confirmed COVID-19. 88.5% had routine access to full PPE for potential aerosol-generating procedures (pAGPs) in COVID patients, while 80.3% had routine access to full PPE for pAGPs in patients without confirmed COVID. All participants felt that they “always” or “usually” had necessary PPE to safely perform procedures and surgeries on COVID patients. 83.6% received N95 fitting in the past year, and 93.4% reported adequate PPE training. Conclusion The majority of participants reported routine access to full PPE for AGPs and pAGPs in all patients, regardless of COVID status. There was a high perception of security, as well as adequate N95 fitting and PPE training. Areas for improvement include: optimizing PPE availability for AGPs in patients without confirmed COVID and wider recognition of otolaryngologic procedures as high risk for aerosolization.

Follow-up of a national web-based survey on the SARS-CoV-2 infectious state of otorhinolaryngologists in Germany

“…The authors describe the shortage of PPE as one of the reasons for the low adherence to PPE and our data confirm this speculation. The correlation between sufficient availability of PPE and high perceived level of safety is also reported for American ORLs [3,32] and was confirmed in this survey again.…”

“…Among these HCW, due to the very nature of the specialty, otorhinolaryngologists (ORLs) have a high probability of exposure to patient aerosols [2,6,8,12,13,17,24,25]. Numerous recommendations for ORLs regarding the treat-ment of COVID-19 patients [1, 9-11, 19, 21, 22, 28] and protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection were published [4,5,14,18,20,27,31,32]. However, only a few studies are available reporting the number of infections or estimating the risk of infection for ORLs [15,23,29,30].…”

Manufacturing Zero-Waste COVID-19 Personal Protection Equipment: a Case Study of Utilizing 3D Printing While Employing Waste Material Recycling

“…Thus, the need for using PPEs stands stronger than ever. PPEs should be adequately supplied while users must be well trained regarding their usage [3]. Medical supplies such as face shields, masks, mask adjusters, respirator parts, hands-free door openers, testing kits, nasopharyngeal swabs, quarantine booths and medical ventilators are considered vital for performing medical procedures.…”

Tracheostomy care and communication during COVID-19: Global interprofessional perspectives

“…Likewise, a survey of 637 healthcare workers in Australia showed that while most understood the importance of using PPE, only a quarter felt like PPE supplies were always adequate [57] . However, PPE shortages were not present in all geographic or practice settings; US otolaryngologists reported “always” or “usually” having necessary PPE in a survey of residency programs [58] .…”