Background: Standard precautions (SPs) in the hospital are very important in the reduction of health care workers' exposure to occupational health hazards but most hospitals are used to reactive rather than proactive safety practices. The effect of reactive safety practices is overwhelming to health care workers, hospitals and the society. Thus, this study assessed health care workers' knowledge and compliance with standard precautions. Materials and Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional design and proportionate stratified random sampling method was adopted and a sample size of 391was selected using Taro-Yamane formula.The study relied on a structured questionnaire to elicit information from respondents and a reliability of 0.87 was obtained. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used with the aid of statistical package for social science (SPSS) software version 21. Ogbonda et al.; AJMAH, 18(2): 11-22, 2020; Article no.AJMAH.55126 12 Results: Healthcare workers' (HCWs) have fair knowledge of SPs and poor compliance with SPs. Also, there is significant association between HCWs' knowledge of SPs and gender, marital status, years of experience and job category in the hospitals (p < 0.05). Consequently, there is significant association between compliance with SPs and gender, years of experience and job categories in the hospitals (p < 0.05). Conclusion: There is great need for strong advocacy on knowledge of SPs and compliance with SPs in the hospitals to curb increasing occupational health hazards. The Nigeria government and hospital managements should develop an all-encompassing integrated SPs policies, strategies and procedures consistent with global best practices. Original Research Article

Contraceptive use is the intentional desire of an individual to prevent or limit pregnancy and it is one of the major components of family planning, an important pillar in the prevention of over-population, which has become a most pressing global problem.  Materials and Methods: The study adopted a cross-sectional design that aimed at identifying the prevalence and determinants of current contraceptive use among women aged 18-49 years in a community in Port Harcourt, the capital city of Rivers State, Nigeria. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 216 women recruited from two clusters chosen randomly out of six clusters in the study area. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Chi-square test was used to test for association between socio-demographic variables and contraceptive use. Logistic regression was used to identify determinants of uptake. Result: One hundred and five women (55.22%) were currently using contraceptive methods. Older than 29 years, being married/cohabiting, and having two or more living children were significantly associated with contraceptive use (P<0.05). Conclusion: This study identified a high proportion (55.22%) of women in our locality to be current users of modern contraceptive methods when compared to national average (27.0%). The male condom was the commonest used modern method (30.5%). The withdrawal method and prolonged breastfeeding were the preferred traditional methods (20.0% and 7.6% respectively). Older age of women (above 29 years), living with a partner, and having at least two living children were positive determinants of current contraceptive use.

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