Difficulties Experienced by Surgical Team Members with Operating Room COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment

Objective: During the pandemic, operating theaters were considered high-risk areas because of aerosol-generating procedures and devices.Therefore, the surgical team members had to wear multi-component high-level personal protective equipment to prevent occupational exposure.In the current study, we evaluated the side effects of operating room coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) personal protective equipment.Methods: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with 203 participants.Side effects in six thematic areas (respiration, vision, hearing-communication, thermal stress, movement-occupational skills, neurocognitive-psychological) were evaluated using a questionnaire and face-to-face interview.Results: The mean age was 32.6±8.4;55.7% were women and 43.8% were doctors.Respiratory, vision, hearing, and communication limitations were determined as 91.6%, 94.1%, 61.6%, and 93.6%, respectively.Those who reported an increase in sweating, warmth, thirst and skin problems were 96.1%, 95.1%, 91.6% and 85.2%, respectively.Restrictions in movements and sense of touch were 88.2% and 80.3%, respectively.Decreased visual quality and psychological tolerance and increased thermal stress and sweating were higher in physicians (p<0.05).Hearing limitation was higher in nurses (p<0.05). Conclusion:The results showed that the members of the surgical team experienced serious difficulties while working with the operating room COVID-19 personal protective equipment, and that they were not prepared for strategies to deal with these problems.There must be a balance between the protective effects of this equipment and the user side effects.It is recommended that efforts should be focused on designing and producing new user-friendly and suitable equipment for employee health.