Occupational Safety and Performance of Health workers in Public Hospitals in Uganda: A case of Arua Regional Hospital.

Abstract

This study investigated whether occupational safety influenced performance of health workers at Arua regional public hospital in Uganda. The objectives of the study were to establish the influence of psychological safety on performance of health workers; to find out the influence of safety precautions on performance of health workers; and to evaluate the influence of personal protective equipment on performance of health workers at the Arua regional public hospital. The study adopted cross-sectional and correlational research designs on a sample of 122 using a selfadministered and an interview guide. Data were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative data analysis methods were descriptive statistics that included frequencies, percentages and means, and inferential analyses that were correlation and regression analyses. The descriptive results revealed that performance of health workers, psychological safety and safety precautions were good but personal protective equipment were moderate. Inferential results revealed that psychological safety and safety precautions had a positive and significant influence on performance of health workers while personal protective equipment had a negative and insignificant influence on performance of health workers. Therefore, it was concluded that psychological safety is an essential component of occupational safety necessary for the performance of health workers; safety precautions are an imperative probable pre-requisite for the performance of health workers; and lack of personal protective equipment is hinders performance of health workers. It was thus recommended that management of health institutions should promote psychological safety for health workers; Management of health institutions should put in place clear safety precautions for health workers; and management of health institutions should provide sufficient personal protective equipments.