A Review of The Effect of Personal Protective Equipment Training on Job Anxiety of Nurses Working in Covid-19 Intensive Care Units

Nurses working in Covid-19 intensive care units may be at risk due to the specific conditions of the work environment and the type of patients. The lack of any definitive treatment or prevention of Covid-19 has put a lot of stress and anxiety on people, including nurses working in Covid-19 intensive care units. Nurses’ job anxiety has a negative effect on their performance. In this study, an overview of studies on the effect of training in the use of personal protective equipment on the level of job anxiety of nurses working in the intensive care unit of Covid-19 in hospitals, has been done.

This study uses the electronic resources of libraries, search engines and reputable databases such as: PubMed, SID, PMC, Google scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, Research Gate with the keywords “Education ( “Training”, “Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)”, “Job anxiety”, “Covid-19”, “Nurse” and “Intensive Care Unit” care unit (ICU) “was conducted among the articles from 2003 to 2021. The inclusion criteria were articles related to the subject of this article. A total of 20 articles were extracted and finally 17 articles were used.

A significant proportion of health workers have symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, depression and stress. Women are at greater risk for experiencing symptoms of severe anxiety. Nurses’ depression, anxiety and stress were moderate. Nurses who are in direct contact with patients infected with Covid-19 are more anxious than those who are not in direct contact with these patients. There is a significant inverse relationship between job stress and productivity of corona nurses. Job stress has a significant relationship with variables of gender, physical activity and employment status.

Discussion and Conclusion:

Ensuring proper mental health support for staff working in the care centers of patients with Covid-19 is one of the important components of health measures in the epidemic of this disease. Managers and health care organizations should provide adequate personal protective equipment for nurses, educate them on proper use, and monitor barrier resolution. Training and monitoring the adequacy of personal protective equipment is an essential component of a prevention program. Training nurses to deal with critical situations similar to Covid-19 and increase personal protective equipment can be effective in preventing nurses from developing depression, stress and anxiety.