Abstract:
Background: COVID-19 is a contagious disease caused by a newly discovered Sars corona virus. It was declared as global outbreak/pandemic in March 11, 2020. Thousands of health care workers are being infected with COVID-19 while delivering clinical service to COVID-19 patients. We assessed level of knowledge and Practice of Health Care Workers (HCWs) towards Prevention of COVID-19 Infection and associated factors at Nifas silk Lafto sub-city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2020/2021.
Method: - We conducted cross sectional study in selected sub-city in Nifas Silk Lafto, Addis Ababa; in March 2020.We employed stratified sampling technique to recruit study participants. We analyzed the data using SPSS version 20. Binary logistic regressions were carried out to identify association between independent variables and COVID-19 infection prevention practice. Adjusted odd ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to determine the presence and strength of associations. P-value less than 0.05 were considered as significant.
Result: We enrolled356 Health Care Workers with 97% response rate. The mean age of the participants was 31.6 years (±15). Over all knowledge level of health care workers towards COVID-19 infection prevention was 84.6% and 53.9% of health care workers had good practice of COVID-19 infection prevention. Good knowledge level (AOR = 5.937, 95% CI: (2.868-12.291), receiving training on COVID-19 infection prevention (AOR = 1.83, 95% CI: 1.158-2.913) and Availability of adequate Personnel Protective Equipment (AOR=2.532, 95% CI: 1.509-4.248) were factors associated with good practice of COVID-19 infection prevention.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Even though the knowledge level of HCWs towards COVID-19 was good the practice of implementing COVID-19 infection prevention is low. Addis Ababa health Bureau and respective health offices should work on health care workers to build capacity by providing training infection prevention guidelines and protocols and through providing PPEs...............................Thesis available at ACIPH Library