Assessment of factors affecting practice towards COVID-19 among health care workers in health care facility of West Guji Zone, South Ethiopia, 2020

Introduction: health care workers are at greatest risk to being infected with COVID-19 in health care facilities. This study is focused on assessing the level of practice and factors affecting practice towards COVID-19 among health care workers in health care facility of West Guji zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia. Methods: health facility based cross-sectional study design was carried out from December 1st to 30th 2020 among health care providers in West Guji zone. The simple random sampling technique was used in study and total sample size for this study was 281. The data enter into Epi Data version 4.4.3.1 and SPSS Version 25 used for analysis. The descriptive statistics and logistic regression are needed. The cut point for statically significance settled at p < 0.05. Results: the response rate in this study was 97.8%. Of all study participants, 50.2%, 8.4%, and 6.5% had traveling history, chronic illnesses, and contact with COVID-19 confirmed cases. Too much working, lack of training, and shortage of protective equipment were reported by 54.5%, 50.9%, and 29.1% respectively. About 36.4% and 38.2% of health care providers had poor level of knowledge and prevention practice towards COVID-19. Working at hospital (AOR= 0.156, 95% CI=0.033-0.741), awareness of the action during suggestive symptoms and signs of COVID-19 developed (AOR= 0.038, 95% CI=0.002-0.817), hand washing (AOR= 0.043, 95% CI=0.008-0.238), not going to crowded place (AOR= 0.001, 95% CI=0.001-0.030), applying physical distance (AOR=0.091,95% CI=0.041-0.579) adherence to triage and isolation protocol (AOR=0.317,95%=0.039-0.577)and knowledge level of COVID-19 (AOR=2.378,95%CI=1.523-6.322) were factors significantly associated with prevention practice of COVID-19. Conclusion: in this study, the knowledge level and prevention practice gap was identified. Type of facility, awareness of the action during suggestive symptoms and signs of COVID-19 developed, hands washing to the standard, not going to crowded place, keeping physical distance, adherence to triage and isolation protocol and having good level of knowledge about COVID-19 were factors associated with good prevention practices. Adequate supply of personal protective materials; provision of continuous on-job training and guideline for prevention of COVID-19 must be given to all health care facilities.