Level of Physical Activity and Quality of Life of Healthcare Workers in A Tertiary Health Institution in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Healthcare workers are physically and mentally burdened due to frequent work shifts rotation, demanding tasks, together with family-related issues which limit their participation in planned physical activity program. Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate healthcare workers’ levels of Physical activity and their Quality of Life. Methods: 62 healthcare workers from Federal Medical Center, Owo, Nigeria participated in this study. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institution’s Health Research Ethics Committee before the commencement of the study. Data was Obtained using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and the WHOQoL-BREF. Analysis was done using descriptive statistics of percentages and frequency while inferential statistics Chi square test and Mann Whiteney U test was used for the test of significance. Alpha level was set at 0.05. Results: High prevalence (51.5%) of low level of physical activity was observed among health care workers. There was no significant difference between age (X2 =0.404, p>0.05); gender (X2= 0.554, p>0.05); work category (X2=0.841, p>0.05) BMI (X2= 0.632, p>0.05) and the three categories of physical activity. A significant difference was observed in the overall QoL between male and female respondents (U= 249.500, p=0.002). Similarly, there was a significant difference in Overall QoL between workers in clinical department and workers in administration department (U=260.000, p=0.002). Conclusion: There is high prevalence of low level of physical activity among health workers. The increase clinical workload among health workers probably contributed to low level of physical activity and QoL among health workers in core clinical departments.