Knowledge, perception of risk of disease, and infection prevention and control practices among healthcare workers and support staff toward COVID-19 in an Ethiopian referral hospital: a cross-sectional survey

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic affecting over 106 million and killing over 2.3 million people. Inadequate knowledge of the disease coupled with scarce or improper use of infection prevention and control (IPC) measures by healthcare workers (HCWs) and support staff may be contributing to the rapid spread of infection. This survey aims to assess knowledge, risk perception, and precaution practices of HCWs and support staff toward COVID-19 under resource-constrained circumstances at a major referral hospital in Ethiopia. An institution-based survey was conducted in April 2020 using 422 subjects selected by stratified random sampling. A five-section survey instrument was distributed, and the collected responses were cleaned and entered into Epi data (v3.1) and exported to SPSS (v.26) for further statistical analysis. The survey found that about 58% of the HCWs and support staff in the hospital appear to have adequate awareness and perceive COVID-19 to be a high-risk disease. Seven out of 10 subjects practice some form of IPC measures. However, the knowledge among allied HCWs and support staff appears to be inadequate. Gender, occupation, and years in service correlated with the level of awareness. Of those surveyed, 78% were concerned about the lack of personal protective equipment and perceived public transportation to be a high-risk factor for the transmission of infection. Additional campaigns may be necessary to reinforce existing knowledge of HCWs, but more emphasis should be geared toward educating allied HCWs and support staff.

Healthcare workers’ compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures, and associated factors, in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…As a result, a random-effects model was used to estimate the pooled proportion of good compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures among HCWs in Ethiopia. From included studies, the highest proportion of good compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures was found to be 70% (95% CI: 65.6% to 74.4%) as reported by Mindaye et al, 56 whereas the lowest proportion of good compliance was 21.6% (95% CI: 18.5% to 24.8%) as reported by Zenbaba et al 54 To identify possible sources of heterogeneity, different factors associated with heterogeneity, such as year of publication, quality score and sample size, were investigated using a univariate meta-regression model. Unfortunately, none of the factors were identified as a significant source of heterogeneity (table 2 and figure 2).…”

“…A total of 7933 study participants were included in the current meta-analysis to estimate the pooled proportion of good compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures among HCWs. In the present meta-analysis, six studies were from Amhara,41 53 58 59 62 65 seven studies from the Oromiya region,38 53–55 60 61 64 four from Addis Ababa,40 56 63 66 one from Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR),39 two from Tigray region,57 67 and one study conducted in Oromiya, Amhara, Addis Ababa, Tigray, and SNNPR 42. However, none of the studies reported from Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella and Dire Dawa regions (table 1).…”

Adherence to infection prevention and control measures and risk of exposure among health‐care workers: A cross‐sectional study from the early period of COVID‐19 pandemic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

“…One notable global challenge faced at the outset of the COVID-pandemic was that countries had limited access to consumables and physical structures relevant to breaking the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in a health-care setting. 26 A critical note by Patel et al, 27 might further suffice the argument, that in developing countries access to clean water and hand rub alcohol are self-limiting to HCWs to practice hand hygiene and other IPC practices. By far, most papers reviewed, 20,28,29 strengthen this claim, however, the readiness of facilities in terms of access to water and disinfectant was not measured.…”

“…Notably, when designing and conducting IPC training, considering the audience can enhance the effectiveness of the training. According to Patel et al, 27 during the onset of the pandemic, training provided to developing countries, under the WHO guidance for infection prevention and emergency response was primarily directed, for instance in Ethiopia to only accommodate 4293 clinical practitioners, which has excluded the nonclinical workforce. It seems related to these shortcomings, that there is a wider gap in effective compliance with IPC practices among porters, runners, and hospital cleaners of health facilities in Addis Ababa.…”

“…Notably, when designing and conducting IPC training, considering the audience can enhance the effectiveness of the training.According to Patel et al,27 during the onset of the pandemic, training provided to developing countries, under the WHO guidance for infection prevention and emergency response was primarily directed,…”