1293 Knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the user gardeners of pesticides in burkina faso

Abstract

IntroductionPesticides are very useful in the field of gardening for the fight against pests, which exposes gardeners to the risks associated with their use. The aim of our work was to study the incurred risks by the gardeners in Ouagadougou, to bring them to adhere to the prevention strategies implemented for their health and safety.MethodsIt was a descriptive and cross-sectional study. The study population consisted of 101 gardeners coming from three districts. They were involved in a no probabilistic way by a systematic recruitment.ResultsMost of gardeners were illiterate (66.3%). Their ages ranged between 21 and 69 years old, with a median of 38 years. 78.2% of gardeners have been trained once on pesticides. Most of the vegetable growers used mainly pyrethroids (86%) as pesticide. More than 90% of gardeners apply products by spraying and they keep the stocks in the fields. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was not worn. The empty containers were either buried in the ground or thrown into the fields. The respiratory tract irritation, respiratory difficulties, eyes irritation, and headache were the dominant symptoms after pesticide application. The drinking water came from wells not well covered in majority.ConclusionWith the strong urbanisation and the increase of the demand, the gardeners were taken to big use of pesticides most of the time without follow-up nor control, with all the possible risks for their health, those of the populations as well as for the environment.

Development and Preliminary Validation of a Scale for Measuring Perceived Professional Stress (SPP) in the Workplace

“…Similarly, it has been reported that the risk of hypertension is twice as high if it is associated with a psychological work environment combining high psychological demands and low decision latitude (Taleb et al, 2003). Respectively among staff serving refugees, and asylum seekers in Dakar and among workers of an insurance company in Benin, occupational stress prevalences of 40.38% and 80.8% were estimated (Dia et al, 2018;Hinson et al, 2017). Like in other developing countries, the phenomenon of occupational stress in Burkina Faso is a reality but is not well-known to employees, nor are the of work-related illnesses and accidents.…”