Is Face and Mask Touching a Real Struggle During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Prospective Study Among Medical Students

There are limited data in the literature on the frequency of face- and mask-touching behavior as a potential vector for the self-inoculation and transmission of the novel coronavirus. In this prospective study, we assessed the facial touching behavior of 204 medical students. One hundred thirty-four...

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Autores principales: Stefaniak, Aleksandra A., Krajewski, Piotr K., Białynicki-Birula, Rafał, Nowicka, Danuta, Szepietowski, Jacek C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Medicine
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8358140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34395466
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.663873
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author Stefaniak, Aleksandra A.
Krajewski, Piotr K.
Białynicki-Birula, Rafał
Nowicka, Danuta
Szepietowski, Jacek C.
author_facet Stefaniak, Aleksandra A.
Krajewski, Piotr K.
Białynicki-Birula, Rafał
Nowicka, Danuta
Szepietowski, Jacek C.
author_sort Stefaniak, Aleksandra A.
collection PubMed
description There are limited data in the literature on the frequency of face- and mask-touching behavior as a potential vector for the self-inoculation and transmission of the novel coronavirus. In this prospective study, we assessed the facial touching behavior of 204 medical students. One hundred thirty-four subjects (65.68%) during the 15-min observation at least once touched the area of the mask (38.23%), eyes (38.23%), or other parts of the facial zone (49.02%). The mean number of touches was 11.98 ± 16.33 per hour. The results of our study reveal that there is no significant association between mask wearing and gender; however, there might be a tendency for people with eyeglasses to touch the area near the eyes more often.
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spelling pubmed-83581402021-08-13 Is Face and Mask Touching a Real Struggle During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Prospective Study Among Medical Students Stefaniak, Aleksandra A. Krajewski, Piotr K. Białynicki-Birula, Rafał Nowicka, Danuta Szepietowski, Jacek C. Front Med (Lausanne) Medicine There are limited data in the literature on the frequency of face- and mask-touching behavior as a potential vector for the self-inoculation and transmission of the novel coronavirus. In this prospective study, we assessed the facial touching behavior of 204 medical students. One hundred thirty-four subjects (65.68%) during the 15-min observation at least once touched the area of the mask (38.23%), eyes (38.23%), or other parts of the facial zone (49.02%). The mean number of touches was 11.98 ± 16.33 per hour. The results of our study reveal that there is no significant association between mask wearing and gender; however, there might be a tendency for people with eyeglasses to touch the area near the eyes more often. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-07-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8358140/ /pubmed/34395466 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.663873 Text en Copyright © 2021 Stefaniak, Krajewski, Białynicki-Birula, Nowicka and Szepietowski. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Medicine
Stefaniak, Aleksandra A.
Krajewski, Piotr K.
Białynicki-Birula, Rafał
Nowicka, Danuta
Szepietowski, Jacek C.
Is Face and Mask Touching a Real Struggle During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Prospective Study Among Medical Students
title Is Face and Mask Touching a Real Struggle During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Prospective Study Among Medical Students
title_full Is Face and Mask Touching a Real Struggle During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Prospective Study Among Medical Students
title_fullStr Is Face and Mask Touching a Real Struggle During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Prospective Study Among Medical Students
title_full_unstemmed Is Face and Mask Touching a Real Struggle During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Prospective Study Among Medical Students
title_short Is Face and Mask Touching a Real Struggle During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Prospective Study Among Medical Students
title_sort is face and mask touching a real struggle during the covid-19 pandemic? a prospective study among medical students
topic Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8358140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34395466
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.663873
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