Usage of personal protective equipment among emergency medical technicians in Davao City: Determinants and association with their occupational stress

This descriptive-quantitative study aimed to determine and describe the patterns of personal protective equipment use among emergency medical technicians in Davao City and ascertain its association with their attitudes towards PPE use, the level of availability of PPE and their perceived risk to infectious diseases, and the level of their occupational stress. The study used a descriptive research design. Using the quantitative methodological approach, survey was used as its data collection technique with the use of a self-administered questionnaire as its data collection tool. A total of 92 respondents were identified using simple random probability sampling technique. Results revealed that that a great majority of the emergency medical technicians are in their early adulthood, majority are male, a great majority have been working for about one to five years. Overall direction of their attitudes towards PPE use is positive. In terms of types, the availability of PPE is high and in terms correct sizes, the availability is moderate. Thus, the overall mean score for the availability of PPE is interpreted as moderate. As for the perceived risk to infectious diseases, both domains, perceived susceptibility and perceived severity have high mean scores resulting to a high overall means score for the perceived risk to infectious diseases. Furthermore, the level of PPE use is determined in term of appropriateness, frequency, and disposal after use which resulted to a high overall mean score. In addition, the overall mean score of the occupational stress is moderate. Results also showed that attitudes towards PPE use were not significant in predicting the level of PPE use. A significant association between the level of availability of PPE and PPE use, and that all dimensions of the level of availability of PPE were found to be correlated with the dimensions of PPE use except for the disposal after use. Perceived risk to infectious diseases was found to be significant in predicting PPE use. The dimension perceived severity is significantly correlated with the appropriateness of use while the dimension perceived susceptibility is significantly associated with the disposal of PPE after use. The study revealed no significant association between the level of PPE use and the level of occupational stress