Physical Burden and Perceived Stress of Personal Protective Equipment During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Retrospective Study in the United Arab Emirates

INTRODUCTION: Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, personal protective equipment (PPE) has become necessary. According to published research, PPE-related physical impacts were probably underreported during the pandemic. OBJECTIVE: To examine the physical burden and perceived stress associated with prolonged PPE wearing among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). METHODS: This was a cross-sectional retrospective study of 209 nurses working in two hospitals in the UAE. A convenience sampling technique was applied, and the data were collected using an online questionnaire. Data collection was completed within three months (April 2022 to June 2022). The completed questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS version 21. Chi-square statistics was used to test the association of categorical variables at a 5% level of significance. RESULTS: A total of 209 nurses had a mean age of 38.4 ± 8.7 years. More than 65.1% wore PPE continuously for 4 hrs per day. The most common physical burdens reported were difficulty in breathing (62.2%), excessive thirst (41.6%), and facial itchiness (39.2%). Most participants (95.2%) reported high-stress levels. There was no significant association between the level of stress and the duration of wearing PPE (p = .43 > .05). However, the authors found a statistically significant association between breathing difficulty with face masks and the duration of wearing them (p < .05). In addition, itchiness/rash related to gloves was significantly associated with wearing duration (p < .05). CONCLUSION: Findings show that nurses experienced adverse effects from PPE use, which increased with the number of hours of wearing. Further studies with a larger sample size will allow for generalization of the study results.