Determinants Of Occupational Injuries Among Workers At The University Of Ghana Health Services

Abstract

Globally, working in a healthcare setting is associated with high exposure to hazards. Health workers in the sub-Saharan Africa region are at elevated risk for biological, chemical, and physical hazards. In Ghana, there is a growing concern for injuries at the workplace despite constitutional provisions to make the workplace safe for workers. Objective This study seeks to assess the occupational hazards and safety practices in hospitals in the Ga West Municipality. Methods A cross-sectional survey was adopted for the study. Convenient sampling was used in selecting the 422 study participants. Both printed and online platforms were used in gathering data. Gathered data were entered into Microsoft Excel for cleaning. The cleaned data was transferred to STATA (version 14) statistical software. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the participant characteristics. Also, Chi-square tests and independent t-tests were used for the bivariate analysis. Multivariate logistic regression was used to model the relationship between dependent and independent variables using 95% Confidence intervals. Results The study results show that 38% of the healthcare workers (n=273) had experienced some form of work-associated injury in the past 12 months. Back pain alone accounted for 76% of all the injuries

experienced by the participants. The risk factors include being a temporary worker (aOR=3.21; 95% CI=1.25-5.89), work stress (aOR=1.86; 95% CI=1.22-5.82) and being exposed to excessive workload (aOR=3.31; 1.26-9.87). The protective factors include being 36years or more (aOR=0.33; 95% CI=0.52-0.98), job satisfaction (aOR=0.48; 95% CI=0.29-0.94) and training safety (aOR=0.51; 95% CI=0.21-0.96).