RESEARCH ARTICLE
Risk Factors Associated with COVID-19 Infections among Healthcare Workers in Eswatini: A Cross-Sectional Study
Samson Malwa Haumba1, *, Zanele Precious Nhlabatsi-Khumalo1, Hugben Byarugaba1, Yohannes Ghebreyesus1, Lindiwe Lizzie Dlamini2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2022Volume: 15
E-location ID: e187494452202100
Publisher ID: e187494452202100
DOI: 10.2174/18749445-v15-e2202100
Article History:
Received Date: 25/5/2021Revision Received Date: 8/11/2021
Acceptance Date: 7/12/2021
Electronic publication date: 16/03/2022
Collection year: 2022
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has spread with alarming speed, infecting millions globally, including Eswatini. Despite the institutionalization of measures by the Ministry of Health (MoH) to fight the pandemic, the cumulative number of people infected with COVID-19 has kept increasing daily. We sought to assess risk factors for COVID-19 infections among Health care workers (HCWs) in selected health facilities of the Lubombo region of Eswatini.
Methods:
A cross-sectional design and systematic stratified sampling were used to select the participants.
Results:
The study enrolled 333 HCWs, with the majority (201, 60.4%) being females, and the participants’ mean age was 33 years. The study showed that not having an isolation arrangement in a health facility for people suspected to have COVID-19 presents risk to HCWs for COVID-19 (Crude Odds Ratio (COR) = 2.5, 95%CI: 1.0–6.2), p = 0.50; Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) = 3.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0–8.7, p = 0.038). Likewise, HCWs who rarely followed infection prevention and control (IPC) measures were at higher risk of COVID-19 infection than those who followed such measures (COR = 4.2, 95%CI: 1.1–17.2, p = 0.041; AOR = 6.5, 95%CI: 1.4–30.0, p = 0.016), and HCWs exposed to a colleague diagnosed with COVID-19 were at higher risk of being infected themselves (AOR = 11.4; 95%CI: 0.9–135.7; p = 0.054).
Conclusion:
An active COVID-19 symptoms screening, triage and isolation arrangement for suspected COVID-19 clients for all clients entering the facility increases protection of HCWs from COVID-19. Reinforcement of all infection prevention and control measures to prevent exposures from infected patients and colleagues is essential.
