Kheir Omar, Watts Regan, Verlinden Jouke, Jacoby Alexis, Smedts Sam, Vleugels Jochen, Verwulgen Stijn
Product Development, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
Med Devices (Auckl). 2022 Jun 2;15:153-161. doi: 10.2147/MDER.S362198. eCollection 2022.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased the usage of various types of face masks. In addition, it triggered the rapid manufacture of new production lines of masks to cope with the unprecedented demand to overcome worldwide shortages. Such masks, which were previously used mostly by the health care personnel, became a daily necessity to the greater mainstream population. This rapid and sudden increase in their usage and the fact that new masks' innovations are progressively emerging to meet the growing global shortage requires an ongoing analysis on the factors associated with the fit and comfort while using these masks.
This paper presents the first translation and validation of the R-COMFI questionnaire to evaluate the comfort of a newly developed filtering face-piece respirator by the research team at the University of Antwerp. The questionnaire, which consists of 3 sections: Discomfort, General wearing experience, and Function, was translated from English to Arabic and involved 43 participants in the Lebanese Red Cross healthcare field based in Lebanon.
The results showed discomfort factors that are mostly related to breathability and sweating caused by mask usage. Additionally, the results revealed that female respondents found the mask significantly less comfortable than male respondents (p-value with the two-tailed test is 0.0319), which confirmed that future validations should consider the concerns of both genders, and validated the R-COMFI translation exercise detailed in this paper.
The contribution of this paper can be pinned down into three findings. The first finding is related to the discomfort issues. The second finding highlighted a significant difference in comfort experience between females and males. The last finding is the translation validation of the R-COMFI instrument, which confirmed that the questionnaire can be applied among wider geographical locations.
新冠疫情显著增加了各类口罩的使用量。此外，它还促使迅速制造新的口罩生产线，以应对前所未有的需求，克服全球范围内的短缺。这类口罩此前大多由医护人员使用，如今已成为更广泛主流人群的日常用品。其使用量的迅速且突然增加，以及新的口罩创新不断涌现以满足日益增长的全球短缺这一事实，要求持续分析与使用这些口罩时的贴合度和舒适度相关的因素。
本文展示了安特卫普大学研究团队对用于评估新开发的过滤式面罩呼吸器舒适度的R - COMFI问卷的首次翻译及验证。该问卷由不适、总体佩戴体验和功能三个部分组成，从英语翻译成阿拉伯语，并在黎巴嫩的黎巴嫩红十字会医疗领域的43名参与者中进行了调研。
结果显示，不适因素大多与佩戴口罩导致的透气性和出汗有关。此外，结果还表明，女性受访者觉得口罩明显不如男性受访者舒适（双尾检验的p值为0.0319），这证实未来的验证应考虑两性的关注点，并验证了本文详细介绍的R - COMFI翻译工作。
本文的贡献可归结为三个发现。第一个发现与不适问题有关。第二个发现突出了女性和男性在舒适体验上的显著差异。最后一个发现是R - COMFI工具的翻译验证，这证实了该问卷可在更广泛的地理位置应用。
