Retrospective evaluation of the symptom-based work restriction strategy of healthcare providers in the first epidemic of COVID-19 at a tertiary care hospital in Tokyo, Japan.

BACKGROUND

Effectiveness of restricting healthcare providers (HCPs) from working based on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-like symptoms should be evaluated.

METHODS

A total of 495 HCPs in a tertiary care hospital in Tokyo, Japan, participated in this study between June and July in 2020. Analysis of serum anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibody to identify infected HCPs, questionnaire surveys, and medical record reviews were conducted to evaluate the appropriateness of symptom-based work restriction for 10 days.

RESULTS

Five participants (1.0%) were identified as infected. Forty-six participants (9.3%) experienced work restriction and all 5 infected participants (10.8%) restricted working, even though the real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was positive only in 4 participants (80.0%). There were no unexpectedly infected participants among those who did not experience work restriction. However, only 46 of 110 HCPs with COVID-19-like symptoms (41.8%) restricted themselves from working.

DISCUSSION

Symptom-based work restriction strategy successfully prevented infected HCPs to work, but showed low specificity to identify truly infected HCPs, and their low adherence to the strategy was revealed.

CONCLUSIONS

HCPs with COVID-19-like symptoms should restrict working as the first step of infection prevention, but the strategy to identify truly infected HCPs is necessary.