Improving communications in PPE: A solution for landline telephone communication.

Abstract

Background. Emergency care staff wearing elastomeric respiratory PPE report difficulties in communicating by telephone. We developed and tested an affordable technological solution aimed at improving telephone call intelligibility in staff wearing PPE. Methods. A novel headset was created to enable a throat microphone and bone conduction headset to be used in combination with a standard hospital emergency alert telephone system. Speech intelligibility of a ED staff member wearing PPE was compared between the proposed headset and current practice by simultaneously recording a short-version of the Modified Rhyme Test and a Key Sentences Test. Recordings were played back to a group of blinded ED staff listening to pairs of recordings under identical conditions. The proportion of correctly identified words was compared using a paired t-test. Results. Fifteen ED staff correctly identified a mean of 73% (SD 9%) words for speech communicated via the throat microphone system, compared to only 43% (SD 11%) of words for standard practice (paired t-test, p<0.001). Conclusions. Introduction of a suitable headset can significantly improve speech intelligibility during emergency alert telephone calls.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Funding Statement

This study did not receive any funding

Author Declarations

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

Yes

The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

University of Leicester. Medicine and Biological Sciences Research Ethics Committee. Ethics Reference: 28021-emlc1-ls:cardiovascularsciences Ethics approval granted 03/November/2020.

I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals.

Yes

I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

Yes

I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.

Yes

Data Availability

Data is available through contact with the authors.

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