Abstract
Introduction: Personal protective equipment (PPE) is one of the effective measures to protect health care workers while carrying out their duties. Each year, occupational injuries and other adverse health effects happen in the health facilities of Luapula Province. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends the rational use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in healthcare facilities where humans are exposed to the risk of occupational injuries and diseases (WHO, 2020).
Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of healthcare workers (HCWs) regarding the use of PPE in public hospitals, and the results were compared to similar studies conducted previously. A validated self-administered questionnaire and Likert scale were used for data collection. The simple descriptive statistics (percentage, mean) and inferential statistics (Chi-square test) were used for the data analysis.
Results: Results of the study conducted in the public hospitals of Luapula Province showed that the majority of participants 322 (90%) responded having a good knowledge on PPE. Linear regression was use to understand the relationship between the education level and knowledge of HCWs on PPE and (p-value=0.002 less than 0.05). The majority of participants 137 out of 358 (38.3%) responded that it was inconvenient to wear recommended PPE during patient care. Another discrepancy was that majority of the participants 150 out of 358 (41.9%) responded that workload affected the ability to frequently wear PPE at work.
Conclusion: The education level, training of healthcare workers and consistent on-site supervision on the use of PPE were found to play the greatest role in improving the knowledge, attitude and practices of HCWs regarding the use of PPE.