PTSD, anxiety and depression in UK frontline health care workers during COVID-19

A,Depressed,And,Tired,African,Nurse,Wears,A,Mask,And

In his debut blog, Will Kapurura summarises a paper that explores the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of healthcare workers in the UK during the early part of the 2020 pandemic.

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COVID-19 transmission risk and protective protocols in dentistry

Covid-19

In this blog Manas Dave looks at a review of the risk of transmission of COVID-19 during dental treatment and pathways and protective protocols to minimise this included 39 papers. While helpful the review has some limitations and our unserstanding of both the disease and its management continues to change rapidly.

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Telling the tale: working in social care during the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020

Featured

Jill Manthorpe discusses a qualitative study which examines the experiences of frontline workers in care homes and home care

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Powered Air-Purifying Respirator (PAPR) use for prevention of highly infectious viral disease in healthcare workers

PAPR Hood

Mark-Steven Howe takes a look at a preprint of a systematic review that evaluates the effect of Powered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPRs)for respiratory protection compared with N95/FFP2 masks on HCW infection rates and contamination.

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Face shield studies and droplet contamination

Face shield

In another of his Covid-19 related blogs Mark-Steven Howe looks at the effectiveness of face shields for preventing droplet contamination.

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The tyranny of average and guideline development for PPE

The reviewers identified researchers found it difficult to control for variation

In this opinion piece Mark-Steven Howe considered the challenges of basing decisions on of average values for decision making when infection is not evenly distributed either geographically nor demographically

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Re-opening of dental services: A rapid review of international sources -update

This paper is not a systematic review. It is a carefully considered review of key literature from one expert’s perspective and is therefore prone to bias.

Mark-Steven Howe looks at this update of a rapid review of internationssl recommendations for re-opening of dental services published just 10 days after the first review and including a further 5 international guidelines.

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Are we sleepwalking into PPE paralysis?

PPE

In this opinion piece Mark-Steven Howe looks at the estimated prevalence of covid-19 in the UK and the impact that it may have on the design of studies to test PPE.

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