Compliance with wearing facemasks by university teaching staff during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic: a cross sectional study

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to explore compliance with and barriers to wearing facemasks at the workplace among university teaching staff in Egypt. METHODS: An online survey was shared with teaching staff members at 11 public and 12 private Egyptian universities and high institutes, and 218 responses were received. All participants were asked about beliefs related to wearing facemasks. For participants who taught in-person classes, compliance with and barriers to wearing facemasks at the workplace were assessed. Compliance level was classified into: Non-compliance, inadequate and adequate, based on the degree of adherence to having facemasks on and not taking them off at five main work settings. We compared demographic characteristics, beliefs, and barriers scores across compliance levels. RESULTS: Most participants (81.7%) believed that facemasks reduce infection risk to others and 74.3% believed facemasks can reduce risk to the wearer. Around 80% of the respondents who taught in-person classes wore facemasks, but only 37.8% met the criteria of adequate compliance. Difficulty breathing and impaired communication were cited as major barriers by 42.2% and 30.3% of in-person class tutors respectively. The risk of reporting COVID-19 like symptoms among non-compliant participants was double the risk among those with adequate compliance (45.9% vs 25.7% respectively). Adequate compliance was significantly associated with higher positive beliefs scores and lower barriers scores. CONCLUSION: Adequate compliance with wearing facemasks at the workplace was low. Addressing negative beliefs may improve compliance. Difficulty breathing, and impaired communication were important barriers, therefore we recommend replacing in-person interactions with online classes whenever applicable. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s44155-022-00011-3.