Of the 337 health care providers interviewed, 171 (50.7%) were recruited from public health facilities while. Sixty-three (18.7%) respondents were doctors, 124 (36.8%) nurses, 52 (15.4%) laboratory scientists or technicians, and 98 (29.1%) were environmental health workers. Study participants were predominantly Christians (336, 99.7%).
The majority (243, 72.1%) of the respondents had completed tertiary education. One-third (125, 37.1%) had worked for 10 years or more, and 246 (73%) work for an average of 40 hours or more. Seventy-eight (23.1%) of the respondents were between the ages of 20-29 years, 156 (46.3%) were between the ages of 30-39 years, 75 (22.3%) were between the ages of 40-49 years, 24 (7.1%) were between the ages of 50-59 years and 4(1.2%) were 60 years old and above. The mean age was 35.9±8.4 years.
The data also depicts that the overall prevalence of occupational exposure to HIV infection among the studied health care providers in PMTCT sites in Rivers State was 45.4% (Table2). Among health care workers in the public health facilities, the prevalence of occupational exposure to HIV infection was 40.9% compared to 50% reported by those who work in the private health facilities.
The prevalence of occupational exposure to HIV was as high as 69.8% among doctors and as low as 20.4% among environmental health workers. Higher prevalence was found among males (53.7%) than females (43.3%).
The prevalence increased with the level of education from 23.8% among those with, at most, secondary education to 53.5% among those with higher education. It was lower among those with less than 10 years working experience 89 (42%) compared to those with at least 10 years 64 (51.2%).In terms of the number of working hours in a week, the prevalence of occupational exposure was higher for health care workers who worked less than 40 hours (50.5%) compared to those who worked 40 hours or more (43.5%) in a week.
Age-specific prevalence revealed 15.7% among healthcare workers aged 40 years and 42.3% for those between the ages of 30-39 years then 41.0% for those between the ages of 20-29 years.
Less than half of the health care workers, 123(36.5%) always wear hand gloves in the course of their duty, while 185(54.9) wear hand gloves sometimes and 29(8.6%) never wear hand gloves (Figure 1).
Almost all 305 (90.5%) of the healthcare workers wash their hands all the time, 22(6.5%) sometime, and 10(3.0%) never wash hands while on duty. Regarding wiping hands with antiseptics, 224(66.5%) does it always while 94(27.9%) sometimes and 19(5.6) never. The face mask was always worn by 117(34.7%) and 85(25.2%) never did.
Up to 45(13.3%) of the respondents never decontaminated instruments immediately after use, 279(82.8%) always do, while 13(3.9) do some of the times.
A total of 278(82.5) respondents used safety boxes in the disposal of health waste, always as against 32(9.5) who never used a safety box. Regarding wearing personal protective equipment, only 168 (49.0%) wear protective shoes, 29(8.6%) use heavy duty gloves, and much less 23 (6.8%) wear aprons while at work.
Figure 2 illustrates the disposal of sharps. Among the study participants, 237(70.3%) of respondents disposed of sharp equipment into containers set aside for sharps disposal. For some sharps like needles, 48 (14.2%) participants destroyed used needles in a needle destroyer, 25(7.4%) bury them in a health facility pit and 3.9% discard them into general waste containers. Only 4.2% dispose of sharps by other means that were not mentioned.
The main predictors of occupational exposure to HIV were career cadre. Doctors were more likely to have occupational exposure to HIV than another worker (AOR=2.2, 95% C.I=1.2-4.3, p<0.05). On the other hand, environmental health workers appear to be protected when compared to nurses and midwives (AOR=0.10, 95% C. I=0.02-0.46, p<0.01). Finally, there was no difference in risk of occupational exposure to HIV between health workers who work less than 40hours a week and those who work for at least 40 hours (0.71(C. I=0.44-1.12, p>0.05).