Risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection among health professionals in Spain

Background. Occupational infection rates for SARS-CoV-2 among health professionals in Spain are high in compari-son to other countries. The objective of the study was to describe and analyze the risk factors associated with this transmission. Methods. Cross-sectional study with non-probabilistic snowball sampling of health professionals (medicine, nur-sing, physiotherapy, auxiliary care) of different levels of care (primary care, hospital, nursing homes, etc.), who were in contact or not with patients with COVID-19, in June 2020 in Spain. We prepared an electronic survey of 81 questions structured in four blocks: sociodemographic variables, knowledge about COVID-19, availability and use of personal protective equipment (PPE), and environmental protection measures and training received. Results. 855 health workers responded, 81.5% women and the mean age was 44 years (28-68). 93.4% knew the main symp-toms but 40.4% did not identify the route of transmission via droplets and contact. 67.5% of them cared for COVID-19 pa-tients without adequate PPE and 29.1% wore the same PPE continuously for more than 4 hours. 25.6% of workers had not received any type of training in donning and removing the PPE and 61.2% of them were unable to previously practice the process. The frequency of coronavirus infection among health professionals was 19.4%, which is higher in those professionals who had not received specific training (25.8 vs 17.2%, p= 0.009). Conclusion. Training, drafting protocols and screening pro-grams, supervising the situations of greatest risk, ensuring the availability of material and increasing the commitment of health institutions to support health personnel should be implemented as contagion prevention strategies.