Occupational health hazards among healthcare providers and ancillary staff in Ghana: a scoping review

Abstract

Background The safety of healthcare workers is a pathway to providing safe care to patients and their relatives, and yet healthcare providers and ancillary staff in developing countries such as Ghana are continuously exposed to occupational health hazards. The strict implementation of occupational health and safety policies seeks to curb these exposures. However, empirical evidence including reviews that are needed to affirm these policies is lacking in Ghana. This review primarily explored the types and prevalence of exposure to occupational health hazards among health workers in Ghana.Methods A scoping review design was employed for this study. A systematic search strategy was used to identify articles in PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, Scopus and Google scholar databases and search engines covering the period of 1 January 2010 to 30 November 2021. Additionally, key studies reference lists, and sources of grey literature were also searched to identify relevant articles. The articles were screened, and data of included articles were extracted and subsequently synthesized. The review considered only quantitative studies. An extensive protocol to this review has already been published elsewhere.Results Our systematic search strategy retrieved 507 publications; however, only 43 met the inclusion criteria. Healthcare professionals in Ghana were exposed to non-biological occupational hazards (stress, burnout, musculoskeletal injuries and violence), biological occupational hazards (sharp-related injuries, blood and body fluids and COVID-19 infection). But studies on exposure to non-biological hazards (34.9%) were more compared to biological hazards (20.9%). Averagely, health care workers utilized and complied to control/preventive measures (compliance to hand hygiene, face mask, infection prevention and control guidelines, hepatitis B vaccine uptake, adherence to HIV post-exposure prophylaxis protocol). Further, there was suboptimal knowledge of control/preventive measures (post-exposure prophylaxis, standard precautions, tuberculosis infection prevention and control measures, risk of exposure to occupational health hazards) among the healthcare personnel.Conclusion The menace of occupational health hazards in the health care sector of Ghana needs more attention. Though this review supports the existing data for occupational health and safety policy, more research is needed to understand the extent of these exposures and their effects on the health system.