Impact of COVID-19 hospitalization on December 2022 hospital staff in Sichuan, China

It is unclear how hospital staff infected with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are diagnosed and treated, and the impact of COVID-19 on hospitals. This study investigated the symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital workers in December 2022. Overall, 1464 hospital workers were surveyed by an anonymous investigator using the Questionnaire Star APP, File S1, Supplemental Digital Content, https://links.lww.com/MD/P619 (15 items). Among participants, 87.64% were diagnosed with COVID-19 and 78.79% had been infected within 15 days. Higher non-infection rate occurred in males (16.15%), aged >50 years (31.77%), and service workers (32.02%). Of the 1283 infected patients, 14.50%, 40.45%, and 45.05% were diagnosed by nucleic acid detection, antigen testing, and self-diagnosis based on symptoms, respectively. Predominant symptoms included cough (88.54%), fever (79.42%), body pains (73.03%), and expectoration (70.30%). Individuals experiencing symptoms lasting <5 days, 6 to 10 days, 11 to 15 days, and >15 days were 22.53%, 31.33%, 21.67%, and 24.47%, respectively. The 3 most severe symptoms were cough (28.37%), body aches (22.37%), and fever (13.79), with 55.88% participants having severe symptoms lasting <5 days. Critically, 73.3% of infected staff required sick leave (mean 3.2 days), causing severe workforce shortages. Despite mild disease severity (low hospitalization), few underwent lab tests (10.5%), or computer tomography scans (8.2%); 92.52% infected patients received medications to alleviate symptoms, and the most common drugs included antipyretic and analgesic drugs (86.05%), antitussive drugs (56.97%), antiviral drugs (40.61%), and traditional Chinese medicine (33.01%). In summary, COVID-19 spread rapidly across hospitals in December 2022, resulting in high rate of absenteeism, demonstrating that even clinically mild outbreaks can critically disrupt healthcare capacity through staff depletion.