Background: Standard precautions (SPs) in the hospital are very important in the reduction of health care workers' exposure to occupational health hazards but most hospitals are used to reactive rather than proactive safety practices. The effect of reactive safety practices is overwhelming to health care workers, hospitals and the society. Thus, this study assessed health care workers' knowledge and compliance with standard precautions. Materials and Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional design and proportionate stratified random sampling method was adopted and a sample size of 391was selected using Taro-Yamane formula.The study relied on a structured questionnaire to elicit information from respondents and a reliability of 0.87 was obtained. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used with the aid of statistical package for social science (SPSS) software version 21. Ogbonda et al.; AJMAH, 18(2): 11-22, 2020; Article no.AJMAH.55126 12 Results: Healthcare workers' (HCWs) have fair knowledge of SPs and poor compliance with SPs. Also, there is significant association between HCWs' knowledge of SPs and gender, marital status, years of experience and job category in the hospitals (p < 0.05). Consequently, there is significant association between compliance with SPs and gender, years of experience and job categories in the hospitals (p < 0.05). Conclusion: There is great need for strong advocacy on knowledge of SPs and compliance with SPs in the hospitals to curb increasing occupational health hazards. The Nigeria government and hospital managements should develop an all-encompassing integrated SPs policies, strategies and procedures consistent with global best practices. Original Research Article

The hospital is a high risk environment for the transmission of infections to health care workers, visitors, patients and the surrounding community. Healthcare workers are exposed to a variety of hazards which predisposes these “indispensable carers” to various life threatening infections and diseases. This study is aimed at evaluating the occupational hygiene and infection control practices in Federal Medical Center (FMC) Owerri and FMC Yenayoa, both located within southern Nigeria. Descriptive cross sectional study using a structured questionnaire and walk-through safety checklist was employed. A total of 379 healthcare workers were selected through disproportionate stratified sampling from the two facilities. The questionnaires were self-administered and analyzed using SPSS Version 22.0. Frequencies, chi-square were computed and multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to identify the predisposing factors to which health workers are exposed; 60.7% of respondents were male, dominant age group; 30 – 39yrs, nurses represented a larger proportion (34.8%) of healthcare workers in this study; 51.7% and 48.3% of respondents in FMC Yenagoa and FMC Owerri respectively had a good knowledge of hazards and controls. There was a significant difference with chi-square as, 9.710 p-Value <0.008. Good level of attitude was 44.7% in Owerri and 21.2% in Yenagoa, chi-square 18.295 p-Value <0.001. Overall level of occupational hygiene and infection control practices was poor in both facilities. Health care workers had a very high level of exposure to ergonomic hazards (88.9%) and biological hazards 47.6% in Owerri and 55.3% in Yenagoa. Nurses were 5 times more at risk of ergonomic hazards (95%CI) – 5.96 (2.19–16.24)  p-Value < 0.001, while Medical Laboratory scientists were 5 times more at risk of chemical hazards (OR = 5.98, 95CI: 3.05–11.69, p-Value <0.001). The checklist revealed that both facilities were of imminent high risk category. Health care workers at FMC Yenagoa had higher exposures to all five categories of hazards than FMC Owerri. Working in FMC Owerri predisposes workers to higher health hazards than in FMC Yenagoa. There was better administrative controls including trainings and immunizations in FMC Yenagoa than in FMC Owerri.