School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Int Arch Occup Environ Health. 2022 Oct;95(8):1647-1659. doi: 10.1007/s00420-022-01863-7. Epub 2022 Apr 26.
Workers from various industries use personal protective equipment (PPE) including masks, respirators, and hearing protection to reduce their exposures to workplace hazards. Many studies have evaluated the physiological impacts of PPE use, but few have assessed the psychological impacts. The aim of the present study was to carry out a scoping review to compile existing evidence and determine the extent of knowledge on workplace mask, respirator or hearing protection use as a psychosocial hazard (stressor) that could result in a stress response and potentially lead to psychological injury.
The scoping review followed recognized methods and was conducted using Ovid Emcare, PubMed, Sage Journals, ScienceDirect, Scopus, SpringerLink, Google Scholar and preprint databases (OSF Preprints and medRxiv). Articles on the stressors associated with the use of masks, respirators, and hearing protection were included. The extracted data included author(s) name, year of publication, title of article, study design, population data, stressors assessed, and key findings.
We retrieved 650 articles after removal of duplicates, of which 26 were deemed eligible for inclusion for review. Identified factors associated with PPE use that could potentially create a stress response were identified: communication impacts, physical impacts, psychological illness symptoms, cognitive impacts, and perceived PPE-related impacts. Evidence for respirators suggest that there may be psychological injury associated with their use. However, hearing protection appears to have a protective effect in reducing psychological symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and aggression.
Mask or respirator use may lead to an increase in work-related stress. Whereas hearing protection may have protective effects against psychological symptoms and improves speech intelligibility. More research is needed to better understand potential psychosocial impacts of mask, respirator and/or hearing protection use.
来自不同行业的工人使用个人防护设备（PPE），包括口罩、呼吸器和听力保护器，以减少他们接触工作场所危害的风险。许多研究评估了 PPE 使用对生理的影响，但很少评估其对心理的影响。本研究旨在进行范围界定综述，以汇编现有证据并确定有关工作场所口罩、呼吸器或听力保护器使用作为可能导致应激反应并可能导致心理伤害的心理社会危害（应激源）的知识程度。
范围界定综述遵循公认的方法，使用 Ovid Emcare、PubMed、Sage 期刊、ScienceDirect、Scopus、SpringerLink、Google Scholar 和预印本数据库（OSF Preprints 和 medRxiv）进行。包括与口罩、呼吸器和听力保护器使用相关的应激源的文章。提取的数据包括作者姓名、发表年份、文章标题、研究设计、人群数据、评估的应激源和主要发现。
去除重复项后，我们检索到 650 篇文章，其中 26 篇被认为符合纳入标准进行综述。确定了与 PPE 使用相关的可能导致应激反应的潜在因素：沟通影响、身体影响、心理疾病症状、认知影响和感知的 PPE 相关影响。关于呼吸器的证据表明，其使用可能与心理伤害有关。然而，听力保护似乎具有减轻焦虑、抑郁和攻击性等心理症状的保护作用。
口罩或呼吸器的使用可能会导致工作相关压力增加。而听力保护可能对心理症状具有保护作用，并提高言语清晰度。需要进一步研究以更好地了解口罩、呼吸器和/或听力保护器使用的潜在心理社会影响。
