Personal protective equipment (PPE) includes clothing and gear to protect workers from potential harm. The Covid-19 pandemic defined “PPE” in the public imagination as referencing masks and full-coverage gear for medical workers, but the term also includes firefighter uniforms, wildland fire gear, police tactical gear, construction harnesses, chemical-proof industrial suits, and every such item engineered for protection. 

Employers and managers must perform assessments to select PPE that will protect workers’ physical well-being. But psychological impacts of PPE also have a significant impact on whether the employee can safely and successfully fulfill their job duties – especially in a high-stress situation. 

For an already stressful job, loading workers up with cumbersome PPE – including respirators, heavy gear, and gloves that make it harder to do fine-motor tasks – can bring its own burdens. Wearing PPE in high-stress environments can add to the psychological strain on the person in that moment, sometimes to the overall detriment of the person’s safety. 

In other cases, safety experts warn that wearing PPE can give a false sense of security, leading employees to lose focus on safety or take unnecessary risks. 

Which situation is more likely? Here’s how to analyze risks and guard against either outcome.

PPE: Confidence-booster or panic-inducer?

Wearing appropriate PPE in risky situations is clearly important. There are simply times where medical doctors must wear masks; firefighters must wear gear; construction workers must wear harnesses and helmets, and so on. But what constitutes “appropriate” can vary widely depending on the situation, and must include the mental effects of PPE. 

Plenty of PPE providers caution that, no matter the industry or situation, many workers get a false sense of security from wearing PPE. This is most often illustrated by an example from sports, where some have suggested helmet usage can subconsciously encourage American football players to take more risks on the field because they feel overconfident that their helmets and pads fully protect them. 

Manufacturers or consultants also believe often that donning PPE can make workers too confident, leading them to brush off other safety precautions that everyone should take. 

In other cases, PPE that is cumbersome – or situations that are During the covid 19 pandemic, a variety of research indicated that medical professionals, working in deeply stressful conditions and buried under elaborate layers of PPE, suffered severe psychological distress due in part to the very PPE that was helping keep them physically safe. Although PPE is essential for their physical well-being, staying safe takes a mental toll:

•  Respiratory PPE that made it harder to breathe boosted anxiety
• The physical barrier of masks and full-coverages outfits increased a sense of isolation
• Donning and wearing extensive PPE is exhausting and uncomfortable after hours on the job

Heavy PPE often brings a mental toll in acutely stressful situations, even when it’s necessary to protect the individual.

Example: Wildland fire gear

If any job qualifies as “high stress”, it’s wildland firefighting. “A lot of the job is grueling and dirty,” according to a news article about the lives of firefighters who battle forest and brush fires. The daily work is often hard outdoor labor to prepare and prevent fires – then suddenly battling massive, fast-moving infernos: “It’s slow until it’s not. Then it becomes vertiginous and hallucinatory.” 

Wildland fire gear is heavy – these professionals wear 15 pounds of clothing and carry 40-50 pounds of gear as part of their work. This includes:

• Wildland fire shirts, pants, and oversuits made of flame-resistant material
• Helmets, chainsaw caps, gloves, hearing protection and eye protection
• Face shields and masks, or portable air-purifying respirator

This is in addition to the tools they use to prevent and fight fires – a physically demanding job in a frequently dangerous environment. Plenty of evidence indicates that wearing appropriate wildland fire gear increases the physical intensity of performing firefighting tasks. Psychologically, there is no avoiding some of the stress of fighting fires – it’s an inherent part of the job. But for firefighters and all other workers who must wear PPE, you can help relieve some of the psychological stress in a few key ways.

Higher safety, lower stress

The first step toward decreasing the mental strain of PPE in high-stress situations is to make sure it’s appropriate and fitted properly. 

In the wildland fire gear example, you’d want to make sure your flame-resistant clothing is as breathable and light as possible, that your gloves are strong but flexible, that your helmet clasp is comfortable, and that the mask and other protective items are high-quality – and, of course, that everything fits well. Ill-fitting gear is distracting, physically uncomfortable and can be a real impediment for a person trying to complete a job. 

All of this entails frequently checking and updating PPE to ensure it’s in good condition. It also requires having clear guidelines about PPE usage, along with frequent reminders of how to properly use it so as to avoid overconfidence. 

Frequent training in full PPE is important to increase comfort and capability for workers who need to keep their cool in a high-stress situation or environment. 

Perhaps more importantly, consultants need to remember that PPE is only one part of overall safety for employees. Leaders need to pay attention to the hierarchy of controls.

1. Elimination: Physically remove hazards
2. Substitution: Replace the hazard
3. Engineering controls: Change the way people work
4. PPE: Use PPE to protect the worker

Safety is about more than controlling for each individual’s PPE – it’s about analyzing the entirety of a situation or environment to reduce as many risks as possible. 

Some jobs are inherently more stressful and dangerous than others. Solid awareness of mental health in these workplaces is the most important thing anyone can do to relieve psychological burdens. Where PPE specifically is concerned, the best solution is always to work with individuals to ensure they understand safety protocol and have well-fitted gear.

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Image Courtesy of Propper International