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An exploration of health workers risks of contracting tuberculosis in the workplace: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: To explore the perceptions of health workers on the risks of contracting tuberculosis at Namwala District Hospital. Tuberculosis literature indicates that health workers are at risk of contracting tuberculosis while conducting their daily duties in the workplace. This is mainly attribute...

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Autores principales: Mwenya, Shadreck, Stapley, Salley
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7664041/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33183290
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05877-0
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author Mwenya, Shadreck
Stapley, Salley
author_facet Mwenya, Shadreck
Stapley, Salley
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description BACKGROUND: To explore the perceptions of health workers on the risks of contracting tuberculosis at Namwala District Hospital. Tuberculosis literature indicates that health workers are at risk of contracting tuberculosis while conducting their daily duties in the workplace. This is mainly attributed to low tuberculosis awareness. It is with this empirical evidence that this study was conducted to further explore health workers risky behavior, attitude and practices that expose them to tuberculosis infection when on duty and eventually generate effective health promotion and public health interventions. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews lasting between 35 to 45 min were conducted to all the participants. A purposive sampling technique was used to recruit ten participants for this study. All the ten interviews were audio recorded in order to enhance consistency during data analysis process. Interview materials were transcribed verbatim, coded and themes generated to form thematic networks. Data analysis was conducted using thematic analysis strategy. RESULTS: Four themes were identified; 1. Health workers personal safety: participants reported wearing uniforms and gloves but they were not putting-on face masks hence, exposing themselves to tuberculosis infection. 2. Tuberculosis infection prevention practices: hand washing was described by many participants as a universal method of protecting health staff from the risks of contracting tuberculosis at the hospital however, few health workers frequently washed their hands after attending to tuberculosis patients. 3. Health workers working environment: the working environment at the hospital was not conducive for both health workers and patients due to poor ventilation, unhygienic conditions, overcrowding and the lack of an isolation ward. 4. Health promotion: awareness on tuberculosis was reported to be low with no refresher training being conducted for health workers at the hospital. CONCLUSION: The risks of contracting tuberculosis by health workers at Namwala District Hospital did exist hence, a need of advocating for tuberculosis awareness for health workers through appropriate health promotion interventions. Health policy should focus on continuous health promotion activities on prevention and control of tuberculosis in health facilities and communities.
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spelling pubmed-76640412020-11-13 An exploration of health workers risks of contracting tuberculosis in the workplace: a qualitative study Mwenya, Shadreck Stapley, Salley BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: To explore the perceptions of health workers on the risks of contracting tuberculosis at Namwala District Hospital. Tuberculosis literature indicates that health workers are at risk of contracting tuberculosis while conducting their daily duties in the workplace. This is mainly attributed to low tuberculosis awareness. It is with this empirical evidence that this study was conducted to further explore health workers risky behavior, attitude and practices that expose them to tuberculosis infection when on duty and eventually generate effective health promotion and public health interventions. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews lasting between 35 to 45 min were conducted to all the participants. A purposive sampling technique was used to recruit ten participants for this study. All the ten interviews were audio recorded in order to enhance consistency during data analysis process. Interview materials were transcribed verbatim, coded and themes generated to form thematic networks. Data analysis was conducted using thematic analysis strategy. RESULTS: Four themes were identified; 1. Health workers personal safety: participants reported wearing uniforms and gloves but they were not putting-on face masks hence, exposing themselves to tuberculosis infection. 2. Tuberculosis infection prevention practices: hand washing was described by many participants as a universal method of protecting health staff from the risks of contracting tuberculosis at the hospital however, few health workers frequently washed their hands after attending to tuberculosis patients. 3. Health workers working environment: the working environment at the hospital was not conducive for both health workers and patients due to poor ventilation, unhygienic conditions, overcrowding and the lack of an isolation ward. 4. Health promotion: awareness on tuberculosis was reported to be low with no refresher training being conducted for health workers at the hospital. CONCLUSION: The risks of contracting tuberculosis by health workers at Namwala District Hospital did exist hence, a need of advocating for tuberculosis awareness for health workers through appropriate health promotion interventions. Health policy should focus on continuous health promotion activities on prevention and control of tuberculosis in health facilities and communities. BioMed Central 2020-11-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7664041/ /pubmed/33183290 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05877-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Mwenya, Shadreck
Stapley, Salley
An exploration of health workers risks of contracting tuberculosis in the workplace: a qualitative study
title An exploration of health workers risks of contracting tuberculosis in the workplace: a qualitative study
title_full An exploration of health workers risks of contracting tuberculosis in the workplace: a qualitative study
title_fullStr An exploration of health workers risks of contracting tuberculosis in the workplace: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed An exploration of health workers risks of contracting tuberculosis in the workplace: a qualitative study
title_short An exploration of health workers risks of contracting tuberculosis in the workplace: a qualitative study
title_sort exploration of health workers risks of contracting tuberculosis in the workplace: a qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7664041/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33183290
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05877-0
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