Knowledge of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases among Healthcare Workers: Nigerian COPD Research Project (NICORP)

Abstract

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a preventable and treatable chronic inflammatory lung disease that often causes obstruction to airflow in the lungs. The main risk factor in Nigeria is long term exposure to indoor pollution from cooking with firewood and fossil fuel in poorly ventilated spaces. Aims/ objectives: The aim was to evaluate the level of COPD knowledge among healthcare workers (HCWs) in the southwestern state of Nigeria.Materials/ methods: Self-administered online BCKQ which is made up of 65 stem questions was used to evaluate the level of knowledge of HCWs. The overall score of individual participants was represented in percentages and frequencies. Tests of statistical significance like the Chi-square test are applied to find out the statistical significance of the difference in percentages. Univariate analysis was done using respondent knowledge about COPD as the dependent variable and the socio-demographic were identified as independent variables. A p-value of <0.05 was taken as statistically significant in the calculations of variables. Results: Four hundred and five healthcare workers were involved in this study, 53.3% of whom were females. The mean age of the study cohort was 48.7±0.55 years, significant majority (75.6%) of whom were <40 years. (p< 0.001).  Majority of cohorts (39.3%) were doctors, while 32.0% were nurses. Only 11.7% had PhD or Fellowship as their highest educational qualification. The overall mean total score of cohorts on the Bristol COPD questionnaire was 51.9±21.9 %, with 40.4% having good scores and only 11.3% had excellent score. Mean knowledge scores were high among doctors (69.9±02.4), HCWs with medical fellowships /PhD (69.9±02.4) and had worked for <10 years. A positive correlation was demonstrated between age, level of education and knowledge score (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study examined knowledge of COPD among healthcare workers in the southwestern part of Nigeria and confirmed that the knowledge of COPD among healthcare workers was essentially good but there were serious gaps in knowledge observed in areas of vaccination, inhalational therapy, and use of inhaled and oral steroid.