Availability of Personal Protective Equipment and Levels of Health Care Providers Preparedness Against Covid-19 Pandemics, A Case of Health Facilities In Gurage Zone, Ethiopia, 2020.

Introduction: Coronavirus infections are emerging respiratory viruses that are known to cause illness ranging from the common cold to severe acute respiratory syndrome. The provision of quality health care during the COVID-19 pandemic depends largely on the health of health care providers. Health-care providers as the frontline caregivers dealing with infected patients, play a significant role in limiting the outbreak of the disease by implementing safety and prevention practices. However, in low and middle income countries they experience barriers to preparedness due to limited resources.

Objective: This study aimed to assess availability of personal protective equipment and levels of health care provider’s preparedness against covid-19 pandemic, a case of health facilities in Gurage zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia, 2020

 

Method: an institutional- based cross sectional study were conducted among 326 health care providers from November 10-25, 2020 in Gurage zonal health institutions. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. A pretested self -administered structured questionnaire was used as a data collection technique. The data were entered into the Epi-data and exported to SPSS version 25.0 for analysis. Both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (chi-square tests) were presented Bivariable and Multivariable logistic regression analysis were made to identify variable having a significant association with the dependent variables.

 

 Results: This study showed that 53.1%, [95% CI= (47.8%- 58.4%)] of Health Care Providers had an adequate preparation against COVID-19 Pandemics. The finding showed that monthly income, occupation and working experience were found to be significantly associated with Health care provider’s preparedness against covid-19 pandemics. Regarding availability of personal protective equipment, 24.8%, 28.3%, 34.5%, and 39.8% of health care providers always had access to facemasks, alcohol sanitizer, glove and Isolation gown respectively. On the other hand, majority of HCPs did not find N95 respirator (85.4%), Face shields (85.7%) and eye protection (87.6%) when needed respectively.

 

Conclusion and Recommendations: Availability of personal protective equipment and levels of health care provider’s preparedness was found to be low. So, the Government and other stakeholders should purchase adequate supply of personal protective equipment and design intervention to increase HCPs' preparedness to respond to the ongoing pandemic.

Author(s): Fisha Alebel

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