Occupational Hazards to Doctors: Types, Distribution and Outcomes

Abstract

Background: The different types of hazards to which doctors are exposed in the hospitals need to be identified and eradicated.
Objective: To study the awareness among doctors about the occupational hazards and the preventive measures that are taken.
Materials and Methods: The sample size was 200, selected by convenient non-probability technique. The study was conducted in
Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad from 2nd March 2019 to 3rd June 2020. Data was collected via questionnaires and then
analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences 21. House Officers, Post graduate residents, and Trainee Registrars
were included in the study.
Results: Most frequent hazard recorded was needle prick injury (52.5%), followed by workload/stress/exhaustion (42.5%). Study
also showed that only half of doctors (52.3%) were using preventive measures of different kinds like gloves, masks, standard
operating procedures etc., rest (47.7%) didn't use them. Almost half (48.1%) of the doctors didn't report the hazards to the
administration and even if they did, proper response was not given to address their problem.
Conclusion: Most common occupational hazards were found to be needle prick injury and exhaustion, and they were more
prevalent among the doctors of surgery department. Consequently, doctors aren't able to perform their duties properly. Moreover,
the hazards remained unreported both from doctors' and hospital administration's side.
Keywords: Hazards, Injuries, Awareness