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      Knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of occupational hazards and safety practices in Nigerian healthcare workers

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          Abstract

          Background

          By profession, healthcare workers (HCWs) attend to clients and patients through a variety of preventive and curative services. However, while their attention is focused on providing care, they are vulnerable to hazards that could be detrimental to their health and well-being. This is especially true in developing countries where health service delivery is fraught with minimal protective precautions against exposures to numerous fomites and infectious agents. This study assessed the workplace hazards and safety practices by selected HCWs in a typical health care facility (HCF) in Nigeria.

          Methods

          The study utilized a descriptive cross-sectional design and stratified sampling technique to identify 290 respondents. The study used mixed methodology and collected data by validated instruments with resulting data analyzed by IBM-SPSS, version 20.

          Results

          The results showed that over half of the respondents were registered nurses, female, married (61.7 %) with 5 years median work experience (70.3 %). Most respondents (89 %) were knowledgeable about hazards in HCFs, identified recapping used needles as a risky practice (70 %) and recognized that effective hand washing prior to, and after every clinical procedure in preventing cross infection (100 %). Also, most respondents (96.2 %) believed they were at risk of occupational hazards while about two-thirds perceived the risk as high. In addition, only 64.2 and 87.2 % had completed Hepatitis B and Tetanus immunizations, respectively. Only 52.1 % “always” complied with standard procedures and most (93.8 %) practice safe disposal of sharps (93.8 %) while those that did not (40 %) generally implicated lack of basic safety equipment. In this study, the practice of hand washing by respondents was not influenced by occupation and education.

          Conclusions

          The high level of knowledge demonstrated by respondents was at variance with practice, therefore, measures aimed at promoting safety practices and, minimizing exposure to hazards such as; provision of safety equipment, pre-placement and routine training of staff on safety practices and adequate reinforcement of staff capacity and capability through drills in all HCFs should be institutionalized and made mandatory. The protocol of the safety training and drills should be responsive to evidence-based emerging and sectoral safety challenges.

          Electronic supplementary material

          The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-016-1880-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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          Most cited references21

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          Health issues among nurses in Taiwanese hospitals: National survey.

          Few, if any, studies have compared the health issues of nurses working in different hospital settings. The objective of this study was to compare the health status and work-related health hazards among nurses working in different hospital units in Taiwan. This study was a cross-sectional survey. The study participants were 21,095 full-time employees with a professional background in nursing, working at 100 hospitals across Taiwan. The study participants responded to a structured questionnaire from May to July, 2011. After adjustment for age, sex, educational level, accredited hospital level, and certification as a health promoting hospital, nurses who worked in administration and in outpatient clinics reported better overall health than nurses who worked in operating rooms/delivery rooms, and these nurses reported better overall health than nurses who worked in emergency rooms/intensive care units and general wards. Depressed mood followed the same trend. Nurses who worked in the operating rooms/delivery rooms, wards, and emergency rooms/intensive care units were at higher risk for occupational incidents than nurses who worked in outpatient clinics and administration. The most prevalent health hazards among nurses were low back pain, sprained/strained muscles, cuts, and verbal or sexual harassment/violence. Nurses who worked in emergency rooms/intensive care units and in wards had worse health and more depressed moods than nurses in other hospital units. Work-related health hazards were common and varied among nurses working in different hospital units. Worksite-based health promotion programs should take these differences into consideration to tailor wellness programs for nurses working in different hospital settings. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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            Infection control: its evolution to the current standard precautions.

            J Molinari (2003)
            The use of appropriate infection control precautions to protect against transmission of bloodborne and other occupational microbial pathogens has become a routine component of health care provision. Evolution and revision of recommendations continues to be based on updated scientific information, as well as documented and inferred clinical applications of new knowledge. In addition, surveillance of occupational risks in medical treatment settings often has served as a basis for subsequent disease prevention recommendations for dental care. Guidelines designed to protect dental professionals and their patients have focused on bloodborne pathogens since the first published American Dental Association recommendations in the 1970s. Subsequent statements developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the ADA and other organizations during the past 30 years also have addressed prevention of other infections, transmitted by either direct or indirect contact with a variety of potentially infectious body fluids. Review of the major features of these recommendations provides an appropriate framework to consider current guideline revisions. The success of long-standing universal precautions, or UP, against bloodborne infection has been augmented with the incorporation of body substance isolation, or BSI, practices into the infection control protocol designated "standard precautions." Combination of the major tenets of UP with the BSI systems routinely employed in acute care facilities affords all health care professionals the means of preventing a spectrum of bloodborne, respiratory, contact and other potential exposures during provision of patient care. As infection control recommendations for dentistry are updated this year, they undoubtedly will include guidelines expanding previous UP to provide expanded protection for dental professionals in the multiple types of nonacute treatment settings in which routine treatment is provided.
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              Relations among occupational hazards, attitudes, and safety performance.

              This study examined psychological empowerment and organizational identification as outcomes of occupational context and predictors of occupational safety performance. In this study, 171 hospital employees from 17 units and 21 occupations completed surveys measuring psychological empowerment, organizational identification, and supervisor safety practices. They also completed measures of 2 dimensions of safety performance: use of personal protective equipment and safety participation. These data were merged with Occupational Information Network (O*NET) context ratings of occupational hazards and physical demands. Results indicated that occupational hazards were negatively related to individual-level psychological empowerment and organizational identification, which were in turn positively related to safety participation. Psychological empowerment and organizational identification also interacted with perceptions of supervisor safety actions in the prediction of personal protective equipment use. Results have implications for organizational safety performance and point to the role of occupational context in psychological empowerment and the extent to which employees participate in the safety of their worksite.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                +2348033964122 , ooaluko@gmail.com
                ayobamiadebayo1@gmail.com
                talk2toteeteealways@yahoo.com
                ewegbemimatthew@gmail.com
                atabidoye233@yahoo.com
                drconfianza@gmail.com
                Journal
                BMC Res Notes
                BMC Res Notes
                BMC Research Notes
                BioMed Central (London )
                1756-0500
                6 February 2016
                6 February 2016
                2016
                : 9
                : 71
                Affiliations
                Department of Community Health, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, Nigeria
                Article
                1880
                10.1186/s13104-016-1880-2
                4744628
                26852406
                b1b5b8bf-4784-4cbc-956c-3ca277834d94
                © Aluko et al. 2016

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 30 June 2015
                : 20 January 2016
                Categories
                Research Article
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2016

                Medicine
                workplace hazards,hazards in healthcare facilities,healthcare workers,nigeria
                Medicine
                workplace hazards, hazards in healthcare facilities, healthcare workers, nigeria

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