Attitude and awareness of the health hazards associated with self-ear cleaning using cotton buds amongst adult patients attending Federal Medical Centre Lokoja, North central Nigerian.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60787/tnhj.v18i1.303Keywords:
self-ear, cleaning, cotton buds, health, hazardsAbstract
Background: Health hazards associated with self ear cleaning using the cotton buds has been a big community health issue for long. Getting the people to accept these health hazards as real is a bigger issue up to the time of this survey.
Aims: To determine the attitude and awareness of the health hazards associated with self-ear cleaning amongst adult patients attending Federal Medical Centre Lokoja, North central Nigeria.
Materials and Methods: Adult patients attending ENT, GOPD and Staff clinics of the Federal Medical Centre Lokoja who granted their consent were recruited by convenience sampling method for this study. Patients were given an informed consent agreement form to read after which they were asked to sign it and then complete an anonymous questionnaire. A total of 500 questionnaires were applied based on Fisher’s formula. Sample collected were collated, studied and analyzed.
Results: Of the 500 anonymous questionnaires applied, 482 (96.4%) responses were received while 18 did not respond. The modal age group was 21-30years, males were 140 and females were 342 and the male to female ratio was 1:2.4. Civil servants 251(52.1%) top the occupation list followed traders. Of the 482 responses 376 (78.0%) were aware of the health hazards associated with self ear cleaning and majority of them 144 (46.2%) got their information from the doctor. Cotton buds were used by 319(89.6%) of the individuals and pain was the commonest complication associated followed by ear injury.
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