Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Apr 17, 2024
Date Accepted: Aug 8, 2024
Occupational infections among workers in Europe: a scoping review protocol
ABSTRACT
Background:
Workers may be exposed to different infectious agents, putting them at risk of developing professional diseases. This can occur in many ways, through deliberate use of speciļ¬c microorganisms or through potential exposure from close contact with biological material. Infection prevention and control measures against biohazards can reduce the risk of infection among workers. During the last few decades, an increasing proportion of workers in Europe have been exposed to infectious biological agents in their workplace. Knowledge gaps on this topic in Europe have limited our understanding of the overall phenomenon in occupational settings.
Objective:
The objective of this scoping review is to understand the extent and type of evidence on the epidemiology of occupational or work-related infections in European countries, the factors affecting their occurrence among workers, and the burden of disease among workers due to occupational risk.
Methods:
The review will be conducted following the JBI methodology for scoping reviews and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. This review will consider studies that include data on the epidemiology of occupational infections, risk factors and determinants, and burden of disease among workers employed in specific occupational sectors in European countries in the period 2010-2023. The search will include MEDLINE, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. Independent reviewers will screen the titles, abstracts, and full texts of the selected studies. Data extraction will be performed using a tool developed by the researchers. The data will be mapped and analyzed according to the type of extracted data.
Results:
The literature search through different scientific databases is ongoing and is expected to be completed by December 2024.
Conclusions:
This scoping review aims to provide rigorous evidence to fill the knowledge gap in the epidemiology of occupational or work-related infections in European countries, the factors affecting their occurrence, and the burden of disease among different professional settings. Such findings could improve the understanding of this complex occupational phenomenon in the European context, enabling a more accurate and up-to-date surveillance of infections incurred in the workplace. Clinical Trial: Not required
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.