Workplace Fire Safety: Knowledge and Preparedness in a Public Tertiary Healthcare Facility in Abia State, South East Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Fire outbreak in a healthcare facility presents enormous challenge and a need for rapid response. The purpose of this study was to  examine fire safety (FS) knowledge of workers and preparedness measures in Federal Medical Centre Umuahia, Nigeria.
Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 27 buildings and 310 employees from different units and departments, recruited by convenient non-  probability sampling technique. A walk-through observational checklist and self-administered questionnaire were used to collect data which was  analysed with SPSS software, version 20. Association between knowledge of FS and respondents’ working experience and FS training was measured  using χ2- test. P ≤0.05 was assumed to be statistically significant
Results: The highest proportion of participants were administrative staff 93 (30%), followed by medical doctors 80 (25.8%) and nurses 63 (20.3%).  Only 28 (9.0%) had received training on FS, 109 (35.2%) knew how to operate a fire extinguisher, while 139 (41.9%) had knowledge of the location of  fire extinguisher in their workplaces. Twenty-six (8.4%) knew the emergency number(s) to call if fire occurs. Only 107 (34.5%) of them had good  knowledge of fire safety. Training on FS was significantly associated with knowledge of fire safety (p=0.026). All the buildings lacked necessary measures for FS.
Conclusion: FS knowledge and level of preparedness were unsatisfactory in the hospital, which may constitute serious threat to the safety of  workers and patients. The hospital management should implement regular FS training programmes for the workers to improve their knowledge, as  well as put in place other FS measures.