ReviewPublic health in practice (Oxford, England)2022
Rapid review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Review in Public health in practice (Oxford, England), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on work, life patterns, and coping behaviours of military personnel in Brunei Darussalam.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Article
- Factors influencing personal protective equipment (PPE) use among blue-collar workers: an accessible survey.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Plastic Waste and COVID-19 Incidence Among Hospital Staff After Deescalation in PPE Use.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Use of personal protective equipment among nurses in the pre- and post-COVID-19 vaccination periods.Revista latino-americana de enfermagem · 2025Article
- Reevaluating Mask Effectiveness: Insights From Evidence-Based Medicine and Clinical Trials.Cureus · 2024Review
- Article
- Factors Affecting Adherence to Social Distancing among Adults Aged 19-44 Years: Insights from a Nationwide Survey during COVID-19 Pandemic.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Article
- Safety Responsiveness and Psychological Distress Among Health Care Workers During COVID-19 (2020-2022) in the Pacific Northwest.American journal of public health · 2024Article
- Article
- SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity among healthcare professionals in a rural state.Antimicrobial stewardship & healthcare epidemiology : ASHE · 2024Article
- SARS-CoV-2 Infections, Re-Infections and Clinical Characteristics: A Two-Year Retrospective Study in a Large University Hospital Cohort of Vaccinated Healthcare Workers.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- The role of primary care during the pandemic: shared experiences from providers in five European countries.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- The treatment of mild upper respiratory tract infections - a position paper with recommendations for best practice.Drugs in context · 2023Review
- A Snapshot of the Experience of Dietitians during the COVID-19 Crisis in Five Arab Countries: Findings from a Regional Cross-Sectional Study.Nutrients · 2022Article
- The Relationship Between Attitude, Belief, Experience, and Knowledge of Iranian Nurses Toward the Use of Personal Protective Equipment: A Cross-Sectional Study.Iranian journal of nursing and midwifery researchArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objectives: Healthcare workers (HCWs) worldwide have and are using personal protective equipment (PPE) as COVID-19 prevention measures, including gloves, gowns, goggles, masks and hand hygiene. Although several reviews have been published on the effectiveness of PPE, these often include studies on other inflectional diseases. This is problematic, because these diseases differ with regard to, e.g. the transmissibility and viral loads in the days after infection. Therefore, we assessed the effectiveness of PPE to protect HCWs from COVID-19 infections. Design: Rapid review of literature. Methods: We followed a practical guide to conduct the rapid review based on a protocol established by the Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group. Meta-analyses have been conducted to synthesize the results. The confidence in the evidence was determined using the GRADE method. Results: We found 461 reviews and 208 primary studies, of which 16 systematic reviews included 11 observational studies of interest. Wearing PPE conferred significant protection against infection with COVID-19 as opposed to not wearing adequate PPE. Overall, the review results show that wearing face masks can significantly protect HCWs from infection. We found no effects for wearing gloves and gowns. Practicing thorough hand hygiene and having proper PPE, as compared to lacking proper PPE, showed a protective but not statistically significant effect. No studies reported the side effects of wearing PPE or acceptance rates. Conclusion: This evidence supports PPE use by HCW, and especially N95 masks, to reduce the risk of a COVID-19 infection.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.