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

Abstract

Introduction: COVID-19 is a rapidly expanding pandemic caused by a novel humanCorona virus. Health care workers (HCWs) are front-line, and they have to knowhow to protect themselves and their patients from this infection. Aim of Work: Todetermine the awareness of rights, responsibilities and protective practices regardingoccupational health and safety during COVID-19 pandemic among HCWs. Materialsand Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at King Abdullahbin Abdulaziz University Hospital during May and June 2020 among 132 HCWsusing a non-probability convenient sampling method. A questionnaire was developedto investigate the HCWs’ awareness of rights and responsibilities along with theircommitments to their role in protective practices regarding OHS during the COVID-19pandemic. The questionnaire was developed based on WHO (2020a) guidelines.Descriptive statistics were applied; to determine significance levels, non-parametricMann Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis procedures were used. All statistical analyses wereperformed using a significance level of 0.05. Results: The majority of the sample wasfemales (75.8%), non-Saudi (75%), and nurses (65.2%) who had graduated with atleast a bachelor’s degree (84.8%); approximately half of them were between 30 and 39years 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 forrights (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 studyrevealed a high level of awareness of occupational health and safety by the majority ofparticipants; hospitals should ensure the continuous accessibility of guidelines and theprovision of training to workers with continuous mentorship.