personal protective equipment for protecting healthcare staff during covid-19 outbreak: a narrative review

Context: the world health organization (who) declared a pandemic state as the coronavirus spread across the world. personal protective equipment (ppe) has become a critical subject during the covid-19 outbreak. it is necessary to prevent coronavirus transmission to healthcare workers (hcws) as providing care. they are at high risk of exposure to coronavirus. the aim of this study was to provide a brief review of some routes of transmission of covid-19, what, when and why ppe is recommended base on the route of transmission. evidence acquisition: in this review, articles were extracted from the google scholar, scopus, web of science, and pubmed search engines. the main keywords for search were coronavirus, covid-19, personal protective ppe, healthcare, transmission, contact, and protect. results: findings showed the covid-19 transmission rate in the hcws that wore ppe significantly decreased. all hcws must use appropriate and adequate ppe in order to minimize the covid-19 transmission. conclusion: although still uncertainty remains around covid-19 transmission and it is early to have conclusion on its prevention, most of recommendations and guidance have emphasized to apply the ppe during covid-19 outbreak among hcws.