Use of personal protection elements in the HBLT Emergency Unit in thecontext of the COVID-19 pandemic

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is a set of equipment, a component of the standard precautions, intended to protect the skin and mucous membranes of the operator avoiding contact with infectious agents. Healthcare workers who deal with COVID-19 patients are at higher risk of being infected compared to other health professionals. Thus they must use them appropriately to protect themselves from possible COVID-19 infection. This study aimed to determine the presence, handling, and use of PPE by the personnel of the Emergency Service of the Barros Luco Trudeau Department. This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out applying a survey to the staff of the HBLT Emergency Unit through the Google Forms® platform. A total of 123 staff of the Emergency Unit of the Barros Luco Trudeau Hospital that answered the survey met the inclusion criteria. Seventy-eight of them were women and 45 men, within the range of 20 to over 61 years old. Thirty-nine per cent of the personnel were notified as COVID-19 positive. Regarding PPE use, 60,2% of the personnel had a predetermined sequence for installation, and 68.3% had a correct sequence for removal of the PPE. The most used were surgical masks (95.9%), KN 95 masks (88.6%) and gloves (90.2%). Of those COVID-19 positive 46.3% were asymptomatic, and of those who had symptoms the most prevalent ones were headache (41.5%), tiredness (34.1%) and odynophagia (31.7%). This study highlights the im-portance of using the personal protective elements by health staff as self-care during the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to describing the most frequent pattern of symptoms in health professionals in the emergency department.