Occupational Exposure to Infectious Diseases among Healthcare Workers in Tertiary Health Facilities in Ebonyi State

Abstract

The study investigated exposure to infectious diseases, among healthcare workers in the tertiary health facilities in Ebonyi State. Four research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted the cross-sectional survey research design. The population for the study comprised 5,200 healthcare workers in tertiary health facilities in Ebonyi State. The sample size for the study comprised 605 healthcare workers. The multistage sampling procedure was used to draw the sample for the study. The instrument for data collection was Occupational Exposure to Infectious Diseases Questionnaire (OEIDQ). Split-half method with Spearman Brown Correction was used to determine the reliability (internal consistency) of the instrument and a reliability coefficient of .79 was obtained. The data collected were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 25). Frequencies and percentages were used to answer the research questions while Chi-Square test, was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed that more than half (53.9%) of healthcare workers were exposed to occupational infectious diseases in the tertiary health facilities in Ebonyi State. There were significant differences in the proportion of healthcare workers exposed to occupational infectious diseases based on age (p = 0.000), gender (p = 0.003), and marital status (p = 0.000). Based on the findings, the authors recommended periodic in-service training on prevention of exposure to occupational infectious diseases for healthcare workers.