Knowledge of occupational health hazards and preventive practices among abattoir workers in Anambra State

An occupational health hazard is any agent, substance, object, equipment, human behaviour or factor capable of injury, disability, disease or death in individual working in an organization. Occupational infections caused by transmissible agents like bacteria, virus, fungi, parasites and toxins produced by these organisms can be hazardous when contracted by abattoir workers in their daily practices. This cross-sectional study assessed the knowledge of occupational health hazards and preventive practices among abattoir workers in Anambra State. Simple random sampling technique was used to select one hundred and twenty abattoir workers from the two major abattoirs in Awka South LGA, Anambra State, Nigeria. A validated structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The split half method was used to obtain a reliability index of 0.73 using Pearson Product Moment correlation coefficient formula. The Chi-Square statistics was utilized to test the null hypothesis at0.05 level of significance and at the appropriate degree of freedom. Data regarding knowledge of occupational health hazards and the preventive practices against occupational health hazards were analyzed using frequency distribution tables and percentages. The mean and standard deviation of occupational hazard scores of the workers were 2.43 (2.93). The result showed that occupational hazards prevalent among these abattoir workers were of physical, chemical, biological, psychosocial, musculoskeletal and ergonomics in nature. Among the workers, 72.8% had a low level of knowledge while 27.3% had good knowledge of occupational hazards. 23.3% had good preventive practices while 67.7% had fair practice, Sex had a significant association with the level of knowledge (P<0.001) and practice (P=0.052) among the workers. The females had a higher level of knowledge than the males, while the males had a better practice of preventive measures than females. There is need to sensitize and organize trainings for abattoir workers to improve their knowledge and ensure proper control of occupational health hazards.