SCDU Dermatologia, AOU Maggiore della Carità, C.so Mazzini 18, 28100 Novara, Italy.
Department of Translational Medicine, University of Eastern Piedmont, Via Solaroli 17, 28100 Novara, Italy.
Medicina (Kaunas). 2023 May 30;59(6):1054. doi: 10.3390/medicina59061054.
Proper hand hygiene is one of the enhanced preventive measures immediately proposed to avoid the spreading of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2, also known as COVID-19. The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of self-reported hand eczema signs and symptoms among healthcare workers in a Northern Italy University Hospital after the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional study was conducted in June 2021. The hospital workers were invited to complete an online questionnaire through a link sent via institutional e-mail to both health personnel and support staff. Eight-hundred and sixty-three subjects completed the questionnaire; 51.1% of them self-reported suffering from at least one hand skin lesion. One-hundred thirty-seven responders declared that they changed their hand hygiene habits, and 88.9% of them carried out these modifications both in occupational and domestic environments. In detail, a change in terms of daily hand washing frequency is reported as follows: before the COVID-19 pandemic, only 27.8% and 10.1% of responders washed their hands 10-20 and 20+ times per day, respectively, while after the pandemic, the percentage increased to 37.8% and 45.8%, respectively. When comparing the health care workers with the administrative staff, we observed a statistically significative difference ( = 0.0001) in the daily hand washing frequency among the two groups, with a higher value in health care personnel. Accordingly, a higher prevalence of hand eczema signs (52.8% versus 45.6%) was detected in the healthcare group. We underline the potential role of the pandemic in the spread of hand eczema as an occupational disease and the need to implement its prevention.
正确的手部卫生是立即提出的增强预防措施之一，以避免严重急性呼吸系统综合征冠状病毒 2 （也称为 COVID-19）的传播。本研究的目的是估计意大利北部一家大学医院 COVID-19 第三波疫情后医护人员自我报告的手部湿疹体征和症状的患病率。2021 年 6 月进行了一项横断面研究。通过向卫生人员和支持人员发送的机构电子邮件中的链接，邀请医院工作人员完成在线问卷。863 名受试者完成了问卷；其中 51.1%的人自我报告至少有一种手部皮肤病变。137 名应答者表示他们改变了他们的手部卫生习惯，其中 88.9%的人在职业和家庭环境中都进行了这些修改。具体而言，报告了日常洗手频率的变化如下：在 COVID-19 大流行之前，只有 27.8%和 10.1%的应答者分别每天洗手 10-20 次和 20+次，而在大流行后，这一比例分别增加到 37.8%和 45.8%。当比较医护人员和行政人员时，我们观察到两组之间每日洗手频率存在统计学上的显著差异（ = 0.0001），医护人员的频率更高。相应地，在医护人员中检测到手部湿疹体征的更高患病率（52.8%比 45.6%）。我们强调了大流行作为一种职业性疾病对手部湿疹传播的潜在作用，以及实施其预防的必要性。
