Covid-19 disease risk factors among health care workers

This is a single-center, retrospective and cross-sectional case-control study conducted to identify the risk factors for COVID-19 among healthcare workers. The sample of the study consisted of a total of 1232 healthcare workers working in Bursa Çekirge State Hospital between 2022 and 2023, 704 of whom were infected with COVID-19 as the case group and 528 of whom were not infected as the control group. Data were collected through an online questionnaire. Only participants who provided informed consent prior to beginning the questionnaire were included in the study. SPSS 20.0 package program was used for data analysis. Ethical principles were adhered to throughout the syudy. In this case-control study, significant differences were found between the groups in terms of demographic and occupational characteristics such as age, gender, body mass index, occupation, educational level, socioeconomic status, public transportation use, work unit and years of experience (p<0.05). Significant differences were also observed in variables related to health status such as presence of chronic disease, stress perception, allergy history and vitamin D level (p<0.05). During the COVID-19 period, participants in the case group had lower average sun exposure durations, average temperature, and ultraviolet index levels and higher average humidity levels compared to the control group, with these differences being statistically significant (p<0.001). A positive correlation was found between the number of COVID-19 cases and humidity levels (r=0.133; p<0.001), while a negative correlation was observed with average temperature (r=-0.156; p<0.001) and solar radiation (r=-0.288; p<0.001). There was a significant difference in vitamin D levels between the case and control groups, and individuals with low vitamin D levels were found to have a 1.9-fold higher risk of contracting COVID-19 compared to those with normal levels (OR=1.931; p<0.001). Laboratory findings also showed significant differences between the two groups in terms of blood glucose, LDH, ferritin, troponin-I, D-dimer, CRP, anti-HIV, WBC, HGB, PLT, LYM, and NEU levels (p<0.05). In this study, we identified several individual, environmental and occupational risk factors that significantly differed between healthcare workers who contracted COVID-19 infection and those who did not. The findings suggest that not only individual immunity levels but also living habits, working conditions and environmental factors play a role in the spread of the infection.