Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Oct 10:9:20503121211051925.
doi: 10.1177/20503121211051925. eCollection 2021.

Personal protective equipment utilization practice and psychological preparedness of health care workers against COVID-19 pandemic in Eastern Ethiopia

Abdi Birhanu  1 , Bikila Balis  2 , Tesfaye Assebe Yadeta  2 , Miesso Bayu  1
Affiliations

Personal protective equipment utilization practice and psychological preparedness of health care workers against COVID-19 pandemic in Eastern Ethiopia

Abdi Birhanu et al. SAGE Open Med. .

Abstract

Objectives: Effective implementation of prevention and control actions by health professionals is substantial to contain the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study aimed to assess health care worker's practice of using personal protective equipment and psychological preparedness against the COVID-19 pandemic in Eastern Ethiopia.

Methods: A facility-based cross-sectional study design was used. The health care workers (HCW) who were working in the selected health facilities were randomly selected. Variables that had p-value of < 0.15 were transformed to multivariable logistic regression model. Finally, the significance level was declared at the p-value < 0.05 with a 95% confidence interval (CI).

Results: A total of 418 HCWs were randomly selected and included in this study. The study participants mean age was 27.96 years with a ±5.6SD. HCWs who were male (adjusted odds ratio(AOR) = 2.21, 95% CI: 1.29-3.79), regularly using sanitizer, accessing COVID-19 management guideline (AOR = 2.83, 95% CI: 1.46-5.47), trained on COVID-19 prevention methods (AOR = 2.6, 95% CI: 1.4-4.7), hopeless of eventually getting COVID-19 at workplace (AOR = 1.9, 95% CI: 1.13-3.28), and feeling unsafe at work when using standard precautions (AOR = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.27-0.79) were associated with good PPE using compared to their counterparts. Moreover, nursing/midwifery professionals practiced good personal protective equipment compared to physicians (AOR = 3.7, 95% CI: 1.8-7.7).

Conclusion: The study demonstrated that being a male, being a nurse/midwifery, regularly sanitizing hands/medical equipment, having COVID-19 management guidelines, trained on COVID-19, and feeling of eventually getting COVID-19 at workplace had a positive association with PPE utilization. Besides, the study revealed that not feeling safe at work when using standard precautions was negatively associated with PPE utilization of HCWs. Therefore, the prevention priorities should be given to frontline HCWs by providing all possible support and strictly implementing the prevention and control guidelines of COVID-19 to prevent the health system from collapse.

Keywords: Associated factors; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; health care worker; personal protective equipment; psychological preparedness.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Schematic presentation of health workers selection of the study in Harari region and Eastern Hararghe Zone, 2020.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Update of

References

    1. WHO. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, 2021, https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus/coronavirus#tab=tab_1
    1. Rajamani A, Subramaniam A, Shekar K, et al. Personal protective equipment preparedness in Asia-Pacific intensive care units during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: a multinational survey. Aust Crit Care 2021; 34(2): 135–141. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization. COVID-19 has infected some 570,000 health workers and killed 2,500 in the Americas, 2020, https://www.paho.org/en/news/2-9-2020-covid-19-has-infected-some-570000-...
    1. WHO. Over 10 000 health workers in Africa infected with COVID-19, 2020, https://www.afro.who.Int/news/over-10-000-health-workers-africa-infected... (accessed 27 October 2020).
    1. WHO. Technical guidance on infection prevention and control during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak for the Western Pacific Region, 2020, https://www.who.Int/westernpacific/emergencies/covid-19/technical-guidan... (accessed 27 October 2020).

LinkOut - more resources