Rights, Responsibilities, and Practices of Health Care Workers Regarding Occupational Health and Safety during COVID-19 Pandemic

AS, Seif-Eldin; GMS, Elhessewi; AM, Alhashem; F, Almoayad

doi:10.21608/ejom.2021.193270

Rights, Responsibilities, and Practices of Health Care Workers Regarding Occupational Health and Safety during COVID-19 Pandemic

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt.

² Department of Health Sciences, College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

³ Department of Nursing Administration, Damanhour University, Damanhour, Egypt.

10.21608/ejom.2021.193270

Abstract

Introduction: COVID-19 is a rapidly expanding pandemic caused by a novel human
Corona virus. Health care workers (HCWs) are front-line, and they have to know
how to protect themselves and their patients from this infection. Aim of Work: To
determine the awareness of rights, responsibilities and protective practices regarding
occupational health and safety during COVID-19 pandemic among HCWs. Materials
and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at King Abdullah
bin Abdulaziz University Hospital during May and June 2020 among 132 HCWs
using a non-probability convenient sampling method. A questionnaire was developed
to investigate the HCWs’ awareness of rights and responsibilities along with their
commitments to their role in protective practices regarding OHS during the COVID-19
pandemic. The questionnaire was developed based on WHO (2020a) guidelines
.Descriptive statistics were applied; to determine significance levels, non-parametric
Mann Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis procedures were used. All statistical analyses were
performed using a significance level of 0.05. Results: The majority of the sample was
females (75.8%), non-Saudi (75%), and nurses (65.2%) who had graduated with at
least a bachelor’s degree (84.8%); approximately half of them were between 30 and 39
years old (50.8%). The majority of participants were aware of their right (mean 4.88
± 0.25), responsibilities (mean 4.87± 0.30), and practice measures (mean 4.72 ± 0.34).
Female HCWs had significantly higher scores than males on the rights measures (z =
-2.15, p = .031), and nurses had significantly higher scores than all other HCWs for
rights (mean 4.91 ± 0.22), responsibilities (mean 4.92 ± 0.21), and practices measures
(mean 4.82 ± 0.23). HCWs aged 30–39 years had significantly higher scores (p = .028)
regarding practice (mean 4.78± 0.32). Conclusion: The findings of the current study
revealed a high level of awareness of occupational health and safety by the majority of
participants; hospitals should ensure the continuous accessibility of guidelines and the
provision of training to workers with continuous mentorship.

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