Bologna, 15 December 2021 – Il Covid, as is easily imaginable, is lurking especially for the healthcare workers. But what are the risk factors preponderant? Here they are: overweight, obesity and chronic respiratory diseases, but also job roles, with a prevalence for nurses and Oss, and night shifts.
This is learned from a study conducted by the Modena University Hospital between March 2020 and January 2021 on its almost 6 thousand employees. Well, of these, 765 tested positive for at least one swab during the first 11 months of the pandemic. This means that the 13% of the operators were infected from SARS-CoV-2, slightly above the national average (11%, Eurostat data).
Emilia Romagna, yellow zone at Christmas? Bonaccini: we’ll see
The study published in Healthcare
The Emilian study – entitled ‘Factors Associated with SARS-CoV-2 Infection Risk among Healthcare Workers of an Italian University Hospital’ – was published in the international journal Healthcare. It is a work that “gives us an idea of how much the pandemic has directly affected our operators”, he explains Loretta Casolari, in charge of health surveillance and health promotion of the workers of the Aou of Modena.
Covid risk: the factors considered
In the study, a possible association between various variables, both individual and work-related, with the risk of contracting Covid was sought. Among the factors considered, the gender and age, body mass index, the smoke of cigarette, the presence of chronic diseases, and also the job role and the night job.
“As expected, SARS-CoV-2 has affected healthcare workers more than non-healthcare workers. Among the health workers, the most sick were nurses and OSS, followed by doctors. In particular, the risk of Covid-19 was more than triple in nurses and Osses compared to non-health workers, and about double in doctors. Interestingly, an association was observed between infection risk and night shifts, significantly correlated with the total number of shifts over the entire 11-month period. ”