ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic continuously highlights the need for occupational health and safety among healthcare professionals. Physical and mental health safety resulting from needle prick injuries, stress, infections, and chemical hazards are priority work-related musculoskeletal disorders for nurses, including those working in the intellectual disability unit. The intellectual disability unit provides basic nursing care to patients with known mental disabilities, such as learning, problem-solving, and judgment problems, which demand diverse physical activities. Nevertheless, the safety of nurses within the unit receives little attention. Thus, we adopted a quantitative cross-sectional epidemiological survey design to determine the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders amongst nurses working in the intellectual disability unit at the selected hospital in Limpopo Province, South Africa. A self-administered questionnaire collected data from 69 randomly selected nurses from the intellectual disability unit. Data were extracted, coded, and captured in MS Excel format (2016) and imported into the IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), software version 25.0, for analysis. The study reported a low (38%) prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in the intellectual disability unit, with significant effects on nursing care and staffing. The effects of these WMSDs included missing work, interference with the daily routine, disturbance with sleeping patterns after work, and absenteeism from work. Since intellectually disabled patients depend entirely on nurses for the basic activities of daily living, this paper recommends the incorporation of physiotherapy among nurses in the intellectual disability unit to treat the incidence of lower back pain while mitigating nurses missing work or absenteeism.
ABSTRACT
The demanding and complex training of learner nurses in clinical practices requires various occupational health and safety measures to curb occupational health hazards among learner nurses. This paper aimed to explore learner nurses' experiences concerning occupational health and safety during clinical learning. A qualitative descriptive, contextual and exploratory design study was conducted. A total of 31 learner nurses were selected using purposive sampling. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews and analysed using Tesch's open coding method. Two themes emerged from this study: "The experiences of learner nurses concerning their health and safety during clinical learning" and "The measures to be taken to promote occupational health and safety during clinical learning." Highlighting challenges and measures to mitigate occupational health hazards among learner nurses in the South African context, Limpopo province, would be beneficial. The findings can assist stakeholders in developing specific precautionary guidelines for learner nurses. Effective and innovative occupational health and safety training programmes for learner nurses can be developed despite constrained environmental resources.
ABSTRACT
Background: The primary purpose of introducing the COVID-19 vaccine was to fight the pandemic. However, the vaccine was not well received worldwide. This challenge has threatened the effective implementation and roll-out of COVID-19 immunization campaigns. The challenge of vaccine hesitancy was reported to be more prevalent in rural areas due to various factors such as cultural beliefs, misinformation, poverty, lack of education, and distrust of vaccines. Yet there seems to be a scarcity of studies determining the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy in deep rural areas of Limpopo. Purpose: The study aimed to explore the prevalence of COVID-19 hesitancy among the rural black population in South Africa. Study Methods: A longitudinal quantitative study was conducted with data from the DIMAMO Health and Demographic Surveillance Site (HDSS) database for 2020 to 2022. A non-probability total sampling technique was used to select the respondents. Trained fieldworkers collected data using an electronic data capture questionnaire. A comparison of categorical variables was performed using Chi-Square in SPSS version 26 and the statistical significance was set at p < 0.05, with a 95% confidence interval to analyze the data. Results: The limited availability of vaccination sites in Limpopo Province, South Africa, was associated with a reduced certainty that the vaccine would be accepted, as reported in the current study. The prevalence of visiting traditional healers was significantly higher in non-vaccinated than vaccinated participants among the rural black population, indicating a different cultural belief among the rural black population that existed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: The present study findings show diverse factors of concern associated with vaccination hesitancy for COVID-19 among rural black people. Lack of education, gender, not being diagnosed with COVID-19, not being a Christian, visiting traditional healers, vaccine mistrust, unknown side effects, and a lack of confidence in the vaccine itself. Conspiracy theories were factors that impacted vaccine acceptance among black people living in rural areas. The prevalence of visiting traditional healers was significantly higher in non-vaccinated than vaccinated participants. Therefore, the present study findings emphasize the need to collectively integrate and utilize the traditional healers in the South African healthcare system.