Evaluation of the physiological changes in prehospital health‐care providers influenced by environmental factors in the summer of 2020 during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

AIM: Wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) is essential to prevent infection transmission, but the risk of heatstroke increases with wearing PPE in a humid and hot environment. Therefore, we aimed to examine how environmental parameters change the body physiology in a hot environment during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study extracted from the MEDIC Japan heatstroke prevention database, which was recorded between 1 August and 7 September, 2020. Its database is a registry collection from seven healthy health-care providers. Subjects recorded their own vital signs (forehead and tympanic temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate, and oxygen saturation) and environmental factors (type of weather, wet-bulb globe temperature [WBGT], air temperature, humidity, and location) every hour during their working shift. RESULTS: From 323 records, a weak positive but statistically significant correlation was observed between WBGT and pulse rate (correlation coefficient [95% confidence interval], r = 0.34 [0.23, 0.45]) and between WBGT and core body temperature. Forehead temperature had a stronger correlation than tympanic temperature (forehead, r = 0.33 [0.21, 0.43]; tympanic, r = 0.17 [0.05, 0.28]), which also showed a larger effect (forehead, η(2) = 0.08; tympanic, η(2) = 0.05). The effect size of oxygen saturation measured outdoors was large (η(2) = 0.30). Forehead temperature increased abruptly at 28°C WBGT and at 33°C air temperature. CONCLUSION: A hot environment significantly affected forehead temperature, and the daytime imposed a high risk of heatstroke. To avoid heatstroke, environmental parameters are important to note as outdoor environments had a large effect on vital sign changes depending on the time of day.