Awareness, Health Concerns and Anxiety Situations of Agricultural Workers Regarding the Use of Personal Protective Equipment in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: Pandemic is an important public health problem and some groups are believed to experience anxiety and need increased awareness during the pandemic process. As one of them, agricultural workers are important for public health nurses to evaluate and develop appropriate approaches. Objectives: Study aims to identify awareness, health concerns and anxiety of agricultural workers regarding the use of personal protective equipment in the pandemic. Methods: Study population of this descriptive research consists of hazelnut workers in a province in the Eastern Black Sea region (n = 153). Personal Information Form, The Fear of COVID-19 Scale, and Beck Anxiety Inventory were used for online data collection. After testing normality with the SPSS package program, statistical evaluation was performed using the t-test/Mann-Whitney U and ANOVA/Kruskal Wallis tests. Results: Average age of workers was 36.34 ± 12.69, 50.3% was female, 53.6% was a university graduate, 33.1% believes improved hygiene is necessary, 43.8% was undecided about social distance, and 49.7% believes it's hard to pay attention to use masks. Of them, 54.9% states they will get infected, 84.3% does not feel safe. The FCV-19S score was 17.62 ± 6.06 and BAI score was 12.47 ± 11.13. Conclusion: Agricultural workers were found to have intense COVID-19 fears and normal level of anxiety, varying with demographic variables such as gender, family structure, and income level. Relationship was found between use of personal protective, social distance, shift work and their fear and anxiety. It is recommended to identify risks in the field, take appropriate measures, provide an effective control mechanism and act in cooperation. © 2021, Dokuz Eylul University. All rights reserved.