Abstract
The impact of wearing a mask on face-touching behavior is unknown. We
conducted a brief survey and observational study to assess the
perception and to quantify how masks affect face-touching behavior. Most
felt that the mask would alter their face-touching behavior with only
18.3% feeling that masks would not affect it. During a total of 330
person-minutes of observation, overall face-touching rate was 15.1 face
touches/hour (FT/hr), 6.4 FT/hr while wearing a mask and 20.1 FT/hr
without a mask (p <0.01). Masks are an effective barrier and
reduce face-touching behavior amongst healthcare professionals.