Incidence of facial pressure injuries in health-care professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the incidence of facial pressure injuries in health-care professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic in a meta-analysis.

Methods: Related studies were obtained through electronic databases, including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) Chinese Scientific Journal (VIP) China Biomedical Literature service systems (CBM) and Wanfang Data (from inception to 27 November 2021). The pooled incidence and the 95% confidence interval of facial pressure injuries were calculated with Review Manager v5.4 software.

Results: Overall, 16 studies with 14 430 health-care professionals were included. Pooled results showed that the pooled incidence of facial pressure injury in health-care professionals was 58.8% (95% CI: 49.0%-68.7%; p < 0.01). The results of the subgroup analysis showed that the incidence of facial pressure injury in these staff was high, and predominantly stage I pressure injury, in the following cases: in health-care professionals who wore personal protective equipment for longer than 4 h, in those without any training experience, and on the nose.

Conclusion: Administrators and researchers should pay attention to preventing facial pressure injury related to the wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE) by ensuring all health-care professionals receive training and by limiting prolonged periods of use.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; health-care professionals; incidence; pressure injury; pressure ulcer.