Assessing knowledge and practice of cholera prevention and management procedures among primary health care workers in a Southwestern State, Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: Cholera outbreaks in Nigeria have been characterized by unusually high mortality (CFR>1%), indicating that systems presently in place for prevention, detection and management of cholera are weak. Given that inadequate health worker performance has been a problem in resource-limited settings and poor health worker knowledge has been implicated in poor health status in developing nations, it is imperative that the knowledge of primary health care (PHC) workers on cholera prevention and management procedures be assessed from time to time. Methods: Using a cross-sectional study design, data collected from 286 PHC workers across four local government areas of Oyo State. Data were collected using a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire with sections eliciting responses to questions on general knowledge of cholera, prevention methods, knowledge and practice of safety procedures among health workers. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests were used to present the data and test for statistical associations between categorical variables at 5% level of significance respectively. Results: Nurses (35.05%) constitute the highest proportion of health workers compared to doctors (8.7%). The mean age of respondents was 38.02 ± 9.48 years with the majority of respondents between 30-49 years. Majority (83.6%) do not know the cholera alert threshold. Overall, 45.1% of respondents demonstrated good knowledge of cholera prevention and management measures. Very few (28.0%) of the respondents had undergone any form of training on cholera outbreak in the past year. More workers aged 40 - 49years knew the cholera alert threshold compared to other age groups (p=0.033). Conclusion: Results from this study show that health workers at the primary level in Oyo State still lack adequate knowledge of general cholera prevention and management procedures. More training and re-training of health workers with regards to management of cholera is desirable to reduce the mortality rates within the selected area