ABSTRACT
In the dynamic landscape of healthcare provision, the safety and well-being of healthcare workers and patients alike stand as central pillars of quality care. The ever-present specter of infectious diseases, often with the potential for rapid transmission, has brought to the forefront the critical importance of accurate knowledge and proficient application of personal protective equipment (PPE). These essential safeguards, ranging from masks and gloves to gowns and face shields, constitute the frontline of defense against the inadvertent propagation of infections within healthcare settings. This study was conducted to ascertain the knowledge and appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE) among healthcare workers in selected public and private hospitals in Ogun State. This is a cross-sectional study carried out among 107 healthcare workers at selected public and private hospitals in ogun state. The respondents were selected through a cluster sampling technique. The instrument used for data collection was a semi-structured questionnaire that assessed the knowledge and appropriate use of personal protective equipment. And the data collected were analyzed using SPSS version 26.0 and results were presented in tabular forms and figures. Findings from this study showed that most of the respondents (84.1%) had a good knowledge of personal protective equipment. Most of the respondents (63.6%) had a good appropriate use of personal protective equipment. A total of 99 (92.5%) and 95 (88.8%) agreed that the carefree attitude by the employee and the lack of funds to buy PPE influences its appropriate use respectively, all the respondents (100.0%) agreed that frequent out of stock of PPE influences the appropriate use, while 105 (98.1%) and 104 (97.1%) agreed that inadequate storage capacity and excessive hoarding of PPE are factors influencing the appropriate use of PPE respectively. All the respondents (100.0%) agreed that regular seminars or training organized on PPE usage, designing PPE program, knowing the appropriate steps in the use of PPE and stable supply of PPE are strategies on how to improve the knowledge and appropriate use of PPE while 99 (92.5%) and 97 (90.7%) agreed that understanding the role of PPE and knowing when to use it are strategies on how to improve the knowledge and appropriate use of PPE respectively. This study showed that majority of the participants had adequate knowledge and use of PPE. It was suggested that adequate training, workshops, and awareness creation on the adoption and use of PPE should be done in the places of work. It was also recommended that personal protective equipment should be made available by hospitals management and nurses encouraged to make judicious use of them and also availability of necessary infection control materials should be put in place to give protection to the healthcare workers.
Keywords: Personal protective equipment, assessment, knowledge, healthcare workers
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Title page i
Declaration ii
Certification iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgement v
Table of Content vi-viii
List of tables ix
List of figures x
Appendix xi
List of Abbreviations xii
Abstract xiii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background to the study 1
1.2
Statement of the problem 3
1.3
Objectives of the Study 3
1.4
Research questions 3
1.5
Significance of the Study 4
1.6
Scope of the Study 4
1.6
Operational Definition of Terms 5
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1
Conceptual Framework 6
2.1.2
History of Personal Protective
Equipment 7
2.1.3
Components of Personal Protective
Equipment 8
2.1.4
Level of knowledge about PPE among
Health Professionals 10
2.1.5 Factors that influence appropriate use of
personal 10
protective equipment among health
professionals
2.1.6 Strategies on how to improve the appropriate 12
use of personal protective equipment among
Health Professional
2.2
THEORETICAL REVIEW 14
2.2.1.
Health Belief Model (Hbm) 14
2.2.2
Application to the Study 16
2.3
Empirical Review 17
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.0
Introduction 19
3.1
Research Design 19
3.2
Research Setting 19
3.3 Target Population 21
3.4 Sample Size 22
3.5 Sampling technique 23
3.6
Instrument for Data Collection 24
3.7
Validity of instrument 24
3.8
Reliability of the instrument 24
3.9
Method of Data collection 25
3.10
Method of Data Analysis 25
3.11 Ethical Consideration 25
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS
4.1 Presentation of results using table and figures 28
4.2 Answering research questions 38
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
5.1 Discussion of findings
41
5.2 Implications of findings to nursing 43
5.3 Limitations of the study 44
5.4 Summary of the study 44
5.5 Conclusion 45
5.6 Recommendations 45
5.7 Suggestions for further studies 46
References 47
Appendix
I 49
Appendix
II 50
LIST OF TABLLES
Table
1: Demographic Data of Respondents
Table
2: Knowledge about personal protective equipment among health professionals
Table
3: Appropriate use of Personal Protective Equipment among health professionals
Table
4: Factors influencing the appropriate use of Personal Protective Equipment
among health professionals
Table 5: Strategies on how
to improve the Knowledge and appropriate use of personal protective equipment
among health professionals
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1: Health Belief Model as
applied to assessment on knowledge and appropriate use of personal protective
equipment among health workers
Fig. 2: Level
of Knowledge about personal protective equipment among health professionals
Fig.
3: Level of Appropriate use of Personal Protective
Equipment among health professionals
APPENDIX
Appendix I: Consent Form
Appendix II: Study Questionnaire
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
PPE: Personal
Protective Equipment
WHO: World
Health Organization
HCAI:
Healthcare Associated Infections
OSHA: Occupational Safety and Health
Administration
CDC: Center
for Disease Prevention and Control
HBM: Health
Belief Model
FMC: Federal Medical Center
SPSS: Statistical Package for the
Social Science
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Health
professional are prone to infection of blood-borne pathogens whenever they come
in contact with infected body parts, blood and body fluids in the course of
carrying out their duties. Most occupational exposure to blood-borne pathogens
usually results in percutaneous or through blood contact with non-intact skin,
The need for protection among nurses and other health care workers calls for
strict application of standard precautions in the health care settings because
heath care workers are at risk of infection regularly through contaminated
hands, relatives/friends of the patients, contaminated environmental surfaces.
Drugs and intravenous solutions (Lynteris & Christos, 2018).
According
to World Health Organization (2018), Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) can be
defined as a set of infection control measures meant to reduce the risk of
transmission of blood-borne and other pathogens from both recognized and
unrecognized sources. These measures are to be used by nurses when providing
care to all individuals, whether or not they appear infectious or symptomatic.
Personal protective equipment is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or
other garments or equipment designed to protect the user’s body from injury or
infection. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical,
electrical, heat, chemicals, biohazards and airborne particulate matter
(Lynteris & Christos, 2018). The purpose of personal protective equipment
is to reduce employee exposure to hazards when engineering controls and
administrative controls are not feasible or effective to reduce these risks to
acceptable levels. Infection prevention and control measures: hand hygiene,
personal protective equipment and waste management materials. The protective
equipment consists of garments placed to protect the health workers from any
other persons to get infected. These usually consist of standard precautions:
gloves, mask, or face shield, gowns of coverall, head cover, and rubber boots.
Personal protective equipment is permitted in delivering the care to all
patients in clinical settings to avoid the spread of infection. However, their
interventions are grounded on the knowledge of the nurses. The nurses should
have satisfactory personal protective equipment' knowledge and practice level
for hospital acquired infection (Garner, 2016).
World
Health Organization defined health care associated infection (HCAI) as
infection that occurs in a patient during the process of cares which as not
evident at the time of admission to a health care facility (WHO, 2018).
Compliance with the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has been shown
to reduce the risk of exposure to blood and body fluids. The level of usage for
personal protective equipment may differ from one types of health care worker
to another. The differences in knowledge of personal protective equipment by
Nurses may be influenced by their varying type of training. The absence of
enabling environment in the health institution such as shortage of Personal
Protective Equipment (PPE) would lead to poor compliance with the use of
personal protective equipment. It therefore becomes so important to assess the
level of compliance with universal precautions by the various types of health
workers (especially the nurses) who make direct contact with patients and level
of compliance by nurses in the various types of health facilities (Lynteris
& Christos, 2018). Therefore, this study was designed to assess the
knowledge and appropriate use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) among
Nurses in selected public and private hospitals in Ogun state.
From
observation, it was discovered that most health professional have knowledge of
how to use personal protective equipment, but present with a non-challant
attitude toward its practice or fail to practice because of some hindering
factors. Therefore, this study is aimed at assessing the knowledge and
appropriate use of personal protective equipment among health practitioners in
selected public and private hospitals in Ogun state.
The
aim of the study is to assess the knowledge and appropriate use of personal
protective equipment among nurses in selected public and private hospitals in
Ogun state. Specific
objectives are stated below:
1.
To assess the knowledge of personal protective equipment among healthcare
workers
2.
To identify the factors influencing appropriate use of personal protective
equipment among healthcare workers
3.
To identify appropriate use of PPE among healthcare workers
4.
To identify strategies on how to improve knowledge and appropriate use of
personal protective equipment among healthcare workers
1.
What is the knowledge of health professionals about personal protective
equipment?
2.
What are the appropriate uses of personal protective equipment among health
care professionals?
3.
What are the factors influencing and appropriate use of personal protective
equipment among nurses?
4.
What are the strategies on how to improve the knowledge and appropriate use of
personal protective equipment among nurses?
5.
What are the nature and available training programme for the use of PPE by
employer?
Personal
protective equipment is meant to reduce the risk of transmission of blood borne
and other pathogens from both recognized and unrecognized sources. They are the
basic level of infection control precautions, which are to be used as a minimum
in the case of all patience regardless of patient's status. Appropriate
adherence by health professional to the use of personal protective equipment
will reduce the incidence of hospital acquired infections.
The
finding from this study will help reinforce the attitude of nurses towards the
use of personal protective equipment and which will further reinforce positive
attitude.
1.6 Scope of the Study.
This
research study is to cover healthcare professionals working in Sacred heart
hospital, Lantoro, Abeokuta in Abeokuta south local government area of Ogun state
and Federal Medical Center, Idi Aba Abeokuta Ogun state.
Assessment:
Assessment refers to the systematic evaluation and measurement of health care
workers' understanding and practical application of guidelines and protocols
related to personal protective equipment (PPE).
Knowledge: Knowledge denotes the level of
understanding and awareness among health care workers regarding the proper
selection, usage, and disposal of various types of personal protective equipment,
such as masks, gloves, gowns, and face shields.
Appropriate Use: Appropriate
use pertains to the correct and effective utilization of personal protective
equipment by health care workers while interacting with patients, handling potentially infectious
materials, or in situations where PPE is required to prevent the transmission
of diseases.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Personal protective equipment refers to items such as masks,
gloves, gowns, face shields, and other gear used by health care workers to
safeguard themselves and patients from potential health hazards, including
infectious agents like viruses and bacteria.
HealthCare Workers: Health care workers encompass
individuals employed in various healthcare settings, including but not limited
to hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and laboratories. This term includes
doctors, nurses, medical assistants, laboratory technicians, and other
professionals involved in patient care.
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