ABSTRACT
Introduction: Problems associated with adherence to safeinjection administration among healthcare providers are onthe rise especially among primary health care workers. Thereis therefore the need to assess the level of awareness andadherence to the practice of injection safety among healthworkers in Primary health Centers in Calabar Municipality,Cross River State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were todetermine the level of awareness and adherence to the indicesof safe injection practices in the study area.Material and methods: It was a cross sectional descriptivesurvey. A total of 398 health workers were sampled from apopulation of 245,681 health workers in the five Primary healthcenters in Calabar municipality using multistage samplingtechnique. All of the health workers including the cleaners andsupport staff were selected for the study. Data was collectedusing a four sectioned semi-structured questionnaire and thedata was analyzed using Statistical package for social studies(SPSS) version 21.0. For awareness and practice of injectionsafety, the data was marked and scored and dichotomized forgood and poor level of awareness and good and bad adherenceto safety practices.Result: The result revealed that a total of 89.9% of the healthworkers had good level of awareness of injection safety withthe laboratory technicians having 100% knowledge. This wasstatistically significant X2=26.9, p=0.00. A total of 59.5% ofthe health workers had good practice of injection safety withthe laboratory technician having the least with 30%. X2 = 30, p= 0.00. There was statistically significant association of levelof awareness with level of adherence to practice of injectionsafety χ2 = 30; p-value = 0.00.Conclusion: The level of awareness of injection safetypractices among health workers was high but their adherenceto the practice of care was not commensurate with theawareness. Therefore, other measures should be adoptedto improve practice of safe injection administration amongprimary health care workers in the study area.