Personal protective equipment preparedness in intensive care units during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: An Asia-Pacific follow-up survey

BACKGROUND: Personal-protective equipment (PPE)-preparedness, defined as adherence to guidelines, healthcare worker (HCW) training, procuring PPE stocks and responding appropriately to suspected cases, is crucial to prevent HCW-infections. OBJECTIVES: To perform a follow-up survey to assess changes in PPE-preparedness across six Asia-Pacific countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A prospective follow-up cross-sectional, web-based survey was conducted between 10/08/2020 to 01/09/ 2020, five months after the initial Phase 1 survey. The survey was sent to the same 231 intensivists across the six Asia-Pacific countries (Australia, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Philippines, and Singapore) that participated in Phase 1. The main outcome measure was to identify any changes in PPE-preparedness between Phases 1 and 2. FINDINGS: Phase 2 had responses from 132 ICUs (57%). Compared to Phase 1 respondents reported increased use of PPE-based practices such as powered air-purifying respirator (40.2% vs. 6.1%), N95-masks at all times (86.4% vs. 53.7%) and double-gloving (87.9% vs. 42.9%). The reported awareness of PPE stocks (85.6% vs. 51.9%), mandatory showering policies following PPE-breach (31.1% vs. 6.9%) and safety perception amongst HCWs (60.6% vs. 28.4%) improved significantly during Phase 2. Despite reported statistically similar adoption rate of the buddy system in both phases (42.4% vs. 37.2%), there was a reported reduction in donning/doffing training in Phase 2 (44.3% vs. 60.2%). There were no reported differences HCW training in other areas, such as tracheal intubation, intra-hospital transport and safe waste disposal, between the 2 phases. CONCLUSIONS: Overall reported PPE-preparedness improved between the two survey periods, particularly in PPE use, PPE inventory and HCW perceptions of safety. However, the uptake of HCW training and implementation of low-cost safety measures continued to be low and the awareness of PPE breach management policies were suboptimal. Therefore, the key areas for improvement should focus on regular HCW training, implementing low-cost buddy-system and increasing awareness of PPE-breach management protocols.