Effectiveness of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers caring for patients with filovirus disease: a rapid review
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: A rapid review, guided by a protocol, was conducted to inform development of the World Health Organization's guideline on personal protective equipment in the context of the ongoing (2013-present) Western African filovirus disease outbreak, with a focus on health care workers directly caring for patients with Ebola or Marburg virus diseases. METHODS: Electronic databases and grey literature sources were searched. Eligibility criteria initially included comparative studies on Ebola and Marburg virus diseases reported in English or French, but criteria were expanded to studies on other viral hemorrhagic fevers and non-comparative designs due to the paucity of studies. After title and abstract screening (two people to exclude), full-text reports of potentially relevant articles were assessed in duplicate. Fifty-seven percent of extraction information was verified. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation framework was used to inform the quality of evidence assessments. RESULTS: Thirty non-comparative studies (8 related to Ebola virus disease) were located, and 27 provided data on viral transmission. Reporting of personal protective equipment components and infection prevention and control protocols was generally poor. CONCLUSIONS: Insufficient evidence exists to draw conclusions regarding the comparative effectiveness of various types of personal protective equipment. Additional research is urgently needed to determine optimal PPE for health care workers caring for patients with filovirus.
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National and international health agencies use rapid reviews, including to inform guideline recommendations in urgent and emergent public health settings.
“Respected national and international health agencies [13,14] are also using RRs, including to inform guideline recommendations in urgent and emergent public health settings [15,16].”
From Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group offers evidence-informed guidance to conduct rapid reviews (2021) · cites this paper as [15]
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References 49 · Cited by 64
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [17]Personal protective equipment in the context of filovirus disease outbreak response WHO/EVD/Guidance/PPE/14.1. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2014. 25642503
- Authors
- Hersi, M., Stevens, A., Quach, P., Hamel, C., Thavorn, K., Garritty, C., Skidmore, B., Vallenas, C., Norris, S. L., Egger, M., Eremin, S., Ferri, M., Shindo, N., & Moher, D.
- Affiliations
- Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (CA)
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- World Health Organization (CH)
- University of Bern (CH)
- University of Calgary (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Stevens, Adrienne
- ORCID
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2015-10-09
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- e0140290
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4599797
- OpenAlex
- W1958409279
- Cited by
- 64
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 1.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Bern Open Repository and Information System (University of Bern) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Open University of Cape Town (University of Cape Town) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Open Access CRIS of the University of Bern
- Funders
- World Health Organization
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › Infection Control in Healthcare
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Infection Control and Ventilation
- Keywords
- personal protective equipment, healthcare workers, Ebola virus disease, Marburg virus disease, viral hemorrhagic fever, infection control, virus transmission, 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak
- MeSH terms
- Personal Protective Equipment, Animals, Disease Outbreaks, Patient Care, Health Personnel, Humans, Marburg Virus Disease, Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola
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