An innovative low-cost personal protective equipment gown made by biomedical trash bags

Abstract

Introduction: Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to protective clothing, helmets, gloves, face shields, goggles, facemasks and/or respirators, fall protection devices, personal warning devices, and full body suits, as well as the head, eye, and foot protection. The recent coronavirus disease (COVID) pandemic has imposed the need of having low-cost production of PPE’s. Objectives: The objectives of the study were to create an indigenous, cost effective, easy to make PPE gown for temporary use in neonatal intensive care unit during the COVID pandemic crisis and to assess the ease and comfort of working in the indigenously produced PPE gown. Materials and Methods: The PPE gown was made using readily available material such as biomedical trash disposal bags, adhesive tapes, and stapler pins. We used the larger bags, which measured 100 cm × 55 cm. The bags were sealed at the base and open on the top. Each bag has folds on each side to increase its capacity when opened up. A structured questionnaire that included 10 questions with responses on the Likert scale used the ease of use of the PPE gown. Results: There were a total of 30 participants including doctors and paramedical staff. There was good internal consistency between the responses in questions (Cronbach alpha = 0.88). The mean and median age of study participants were 30.2 years and 30 years, respectively. The response for various questions ranged from 56% to 80% with an overall mean score of 64.56±10. Conclusion: A simple low-cost innovative PPE gown that can be made from a trash bag was found comfortable on preliminary testing.