Intensive care medical procedures are more complicated, more stressful, and less comfortable with Ebola personal protective equipment: A simulation study

Guillaume Grillet (1) , Nicolas Marjanovic (2) , Jean-Marc Diverrez (3) , Pierre Tattevin (4, 5) , Jean-Marc Tadié (6, 7) , Erwan L’her (8, 2, 3)

1 CHU Pontchaillou [Rennes]
2 Hôpital de la Cavale Blanche
3 IRT b-com - Institut de Recherche Technologique b-com
4 Service des maladies infectieuses
5 Fonction, structure et inactivation d'ARN bactériens
6 CIC - Centre d'Investigation Clinique [Rennes]
7 Service des maladies infectieuses et réanimation médicale [Rennes] = Infectious Disease and Intensive Care [Rennes]
8 LaTIM - Laboratoire de Traitement de l'Information Medicale

Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a life-threatening condition. Appropriate management of organ failure, hemodynamic instability, and metabolic disorders significantly improves survival. This implies that life-saving procedures are undertaken in case of need, including endotracheal intubation, nasogastric tube placement and central venous catheter (CVC) insertion. The challenge is to provide high quality of care to patients with life-threatening EVD, under optimal safety conditions for health care workers, i.e. with reinforced personal protective equipment (PPE), ensuring that no exposure to patient blood or any other body fluid occur.1, 2 and 3 We assessed the impact of Ebola PPE use on the performance of senior ICU physicians during common intensive care unit (ICU) procedures, and on the workload, in a simulation environment...

Keywords: Stress; Protective equipment; Intensive Care; Ebola virus disease; Task performance; Workload

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Santé publique et épidémiologie

Guillaume Grillet, Nicolas Marjanovic, Jean-Marc Diverrez, Pierre Tattevin, Jean-Marc Tadié, et al.. Intensive care medical procedures are more complicated, more stressful, and less comfortable with Ebola personal protective equipment: A simulation study. Journal of Infection, 2015, 71 (6), pp.703-706. ⟨10.1016/j.jinf.2015.09.003⟩. ⟨hal-01205356⟩