Introduction
atopy, CM, complaints of facial warmth
ATOPY, HEAT, PHYSICAL STRESS
During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, in most countries face masks were recommended or mandatory in medical institutions, public areas, and at workplacesWearing masks under physical exercise up to the maximum workload lead to cardiopulmonary stress of the tested subjects in several studies. ReviewsShaw et al.However, as mentioned before, in many studies on wearing masks under physical stress, short-term loads up to 300 watts and more were carried out on bicycle ergometerTherefore, we investigated the influence of three commonly used types of masks (SM, CM, FFP2) in a normally trained cohort under different workloads corresponding to German workplaces. Another focus of our partially double-blinded study, that was recently published, was on cardiopulmonary parameters. It showed that wearing face masks at rest and under workload changed the breathing pattern in the sense of physiological compensationWhile general heat perception during a 1-h walk with SM increased similar as without SM, complaints of facial warmth constituted the single most frequent complaint (52%) with SMSince, in addition to physical health burden, psychological distress also plays a role in risk assessment at the workplace, the aim of the partially double-blinded randomized crossover study presented here was subjective impairment of the study participants by wearing three different mask types compared to the no mask situation and how the impairment changes with increasing physical exertion and longer wearing time. Furthermore, it should be examined whether the subjective perception of heat and humidity corresponds to the data actually measured. Since subjective impairment includes cognitive performance this was also tested under mask wearing conditions at rest. As employers have to determine a suitable mask type and tolerable periods of wearing time recommended for workers, the question arose whether the subjective feeling during mask wearing is influenced by individual factors like age, sex, atopy, or a “sensitive” disposition.