Wong 2004.
| Methods | Randomised multiple‐arm parallel group simulation study | |
| Participants | Nursing students volunteering; N = 100 nursing students who had given written consent, 82% female, age 21 ± 1.2 years, 60% completed more than one study year, all had been taught PPE use, none had been involved with SARS patients | |
| Interventions | Ten different brands and types of PPE at the time of the study in use in Hong Kong hospitals; one type was a surgical gown and one the brand Barrierman, probably Tyvek by DuPont, the others were denoted as White A, White, Green, Y‐HR‐9, Yellow, Blue, Blue‐9, B‐NHK‐9, B‐HR‐9. These were categorised into four categories: A: Good water repellency and penetration resistance but poor air permeability; B Good water repellency and air permeability but poor water penetration resistance; C: Surgical gown with poor water repellency and penetration resistance and fair air permeability; D Barrierman, with good water repellency, poor air permeability and fair water penetration resistance. Types A,B, C, and D were compared against each other |
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| Outcomes | 1. Usability rated by the users as the mean of 5‐point scales for: instructions, comfort, ease of donning and doffing, and satisfaction 2. Donning and doffing time/durations in minutes 3. Contamination after spraying fluorescent marker on the trunk and doffing of PPE, measured as mean number of contaminated spots that light up in UV‐light |
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| Notes | Hong Kong, China; Funded by Hong Kong Infection Control Nurses’ Association, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; no conflict of interest is reported in the article | |
| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) | Low risk | Subjects were allocated a PPE using a random table page 91 |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Unclear risk | Not reported and information asked from authors did not lead to a higher confidence in allocation concealment |
| Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes | Unclear risk | Not blinded; page 91 and discussion page 95 indicates that they knew what they were wearing, obviously, as PPE Type D was a one‐piece construct, and they were asked to read manual for wearing. |
| Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes | Unclear risk | Not reported |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Unclear risk | Not reported if any data were missing |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Unclear risk | Apparently all data reported |
| Other bias | Low risk | No indication of other bias |