The Effect of Safety Measure Educational Guideline on Knowledge, Practice and Adverse Health Outcomes among Pesticide Workers

Eiz–Elregal, Fatma A.; Mabrouk, Shimaa; Ali, Hend Hassan

doi:10.21608/ejhc.2019.106793

The Effect of Safety Measure Educational Guideline on Knowledge, Practice and Adverse Health Outcomes among Pesticide Workers

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Community Health Nursing , Faculty of Nursing , Fayoum University

² Public health and community medicine, faculty of medicine, Fayoum University

³ Community Health nursing in Obstetrics and Gynecological hospital .Ain Shams University

10.21608/ejhc.2019.106793

Abstract

Background: Pesticides are chemicals that are used to kill or control pests which include
insects and rodents, in addition to a virus, bacteria, fungi, and other organisms. They play a
key role in the protection, prevention, responding to outbreaks, and control of infectious
diseases. The continuous exposure of the workers to pesticides leads to adverse health
outcome due to that the workers do not apply safety measure guideline. Aim: of this study was
to evaluate the effect of safety measure educational guideline on knowledge, practice and
adverse health outcomes among pesticide workers. Subjects and methods: Design: A quasi
experimental design (one group pre/posttest) was used for the conduction of this study.
Setting: The study was conducted at all sections of disease vector control of the General
Department of Vector Control, in the Directorate of Health Affairs, at Cairo Governorate. The
sample: A convenient sample from (120) pesticide workers. Tools of data collection: The
study included three tools: A structured interview questionnaire, an observation checklist
(pre/post-tests) and a self-reported health assessment sheet of adverse health outcomes of
pesticide workers. Results: All of the pesticide workers were male with a mean age33.2 ± 4.7
and less than two third are married. The study denoted that there were poor total knowledge
and inadequate total practice score pre educational guideline and highly significant (p=0.000)
improvements of total score of workers knowledge and practice at the post-test. Conclusion:
The educational guideline had a positive effect on pesticide workers knowledge and practice.
In addition , a significant reduction was observed in posttest regarding adverse health
outcomes. Recommendations: Periodic safety measure educational guideline for all workers
exposed to pesticides with continuous use of personal protective equipment and following
safety instructions.

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