Factors Associated with Pre-Vaccination SARS-CoV-2 Infection Risk among Hospital Nurses Facing COVID-19 Outbreak

Luca Coppeta, Cristiana Ferrari, Andrea Mazza, Marco Trabucco Aurilio and Stefano Rizza
Additional contact information
Luca Coppeta: Department of Occupational Medicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy
Cristiana Ferrari: Department of Occupational Medicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy
Andrea Mazza: Department of Occupational Medicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy
Marco Trabucco Aurilio: Department of Medicine and Health Sciences “V. Tiberio”, University of Molise, 86100 Campobasso, Italy
Stefano Rizza: Department of Systems Medicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 24, 1-7

Abstract: The objective of this work was to evaluate the magnitude of COVID-19 spread and the related risk factors among hospital nurses employed in a COVID hospital in Rome, before the beginning of the vaccination programmes commenced in 2021. Participants periodically underwent (every 15–30 days) nasopharyngeal swab and/or blood sample for SARS-CoV-2 IgG examination. From 1 March 2020 to 31 December 2020, we found 162 cases of COVID-19 infection ( n = 143 nasopharyngeal swab and n = 19 IgG-positive) in a total of 918 hospital nurses (17.6%). Most SARS-CoV-2-infected hospital nurses were night shift workers (NSWs), smokers, with higher BMI and lower mean age than that of individuals who tested negative. After adjusting for covariates, age (OR = 0.923, 95% C.I. 0.895–0.952), night shift work (OR = 2.056, 95% C.I. 1.320–2.300), smoking status (OR = 1.603, 95% C.I. 1.080–2.378) and working in high-risk settings (OR = 1.607, 95% C.I. 1.036–2.593) were significantly associated with SARS-CoV-2 hospital infection, whereas BMI was not significantly related. In conclusion, we found a high prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among hospital nurses at a Rome COVID hospital in the pre-vaccination period. Smoking, young age, night shift work and high-risk hospital settings are relevant risk factors for hospital SARS-CoV-2 infection; therefore, a close health surveillance should be necessary among hospital nurses exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; health care workers; COVID-19 outbreak; night shift (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/13053/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/13053/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:24:p:13053-:d:699707

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().