Abstract

The use of personal protective equipment by healthcare workers is one of the effective protection
methods against occupational hazards and risks. The use of personal protective equipment protects
healthcare workers’ own health and improves the quality of healthcare services by providing a safe
service to patients. In this study, it was aimed to examine the studies on personal protective equipment
use in health care institutions by bibliometric analysis method. For this purpose, studies conducted in
the Web of Science database until October 2024 with the keywords hospital, health care institutions
and healthcare institutions, respectively, along with personal protective equipment were searched.
As a result of the search, 3,354 studies were reached, but 332 studies were included in the analysis
by eliminating studies that did not meet the specified criteria. In the analysis of the data, Microsoft
Excel was used for descriptive features and VOSviewer was used for other analyses and visualizations.
According to the results of the analysis, it was determined that studies on personal protective equipment
use showed a significant increase with the Covid-19 pandemic and that the subject had a wide coverage
in the scientific literature during this period. It was observed that most of the studies were concentrated
in the fields of science and medicine, the USA was in the leading position and Turkey stood out as the 6th
country with the highest number of publications. The results contribute to understanding the scope and
trends of the literature on personal protective equipment use and aim to provide guidance for future
research.

Author(s)

Sinem Sarıçoban
Gülbiye Yenimahalleli Yaşar

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