Contamination during doffing of personal protective equipment by healthcare providers

In this study, we aimed to describe the processes of both the donning and the doffing of personal protective equipment for Ebola and evaluate contamination during the doffing process.

We recruited study participants among physicians and nurses of the emergency department of Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, Korea. Participants were asked to carry out doffing and donning procedures with a helper after a 50-minute brief training and demonstration based on the 2014 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocol. Two separate cameras with high-density capability were set up, and the donning and doffing processes were video-taped. A trained examiner inspected all video recordings and coded for intervals, errors, and contaminations defined as the outside of the equipment touching the clinician's body surface.

Overall, 29 participants were enrolled. Twenty (68.9%) were female, and the mean age was 29.2 years. For the donning process, the average interval until the end was 234.2 seconds (standard deviation [SD], 65.7), and the most frequent errors occurred when putting on the outer gloves (27.5%), respirator (20.6%), and hood (20.6%). For the doffing process, the average interval until the end was 183.7 seconds (SD, 38.4), and the most frequent errors occurred during disinfecting the feet (37.9%), discarding the scrubs (17.2%), and putting on gloves (13.7%), respectively. During the doffing process, 65 incidences of contamination occurred (2.2 incidents/person). The most vulnerable processes were removing respirators (79.2%), removing the shoe covers (65.5%), and removal of the hood (41.3%).

A significant number of contaminations occur during the doffing process of personal protective equipment.