The Effect of Different Personal Protective Equipment Masks on Health Care Workers’ Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Performance During the Covid-19 Pandemic

BACKGROUND: Personal protective equipment (PPE) is equipment that protects health care workers from harmful agents and organisms. The importance of this equipment was noticed again with the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. OBJECTIVES: In this study, we investigated the effect of different masks used as PPE on resuscitation quality and rescuer fatigue. METHODS: Participants applied chest compression without a mask, with a surgical mask, a filtering face-piece respirator (FFR) mask, and a half-face mask with active P3 filter. A smart watch was worn on the left wrists of the participants during chest compression in each condition. They were requested to rate their fatigue on a visual analogue scale. RESULTS: Statistically higher average pulse rates were found in the FFR mask and half-face mask conditions. FFR mask and half-face mask resulted in statistically worse results than surgical mask and no-mask conditions in the number of compressions per minute, compression depth, and compression effectiveness. Further, half-face mask and FFR mask caused more fatigue in participants. CONCLUSION: Protective masks other than surgical masks used as PPE increase rescuer fatigue in CPR and negatively affect the quality of chest compressions.