Prevalence and Factors Associated with Respiratory Symptoms Among Bahir Dar Textile Industry Workers, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: The expansions of labor-intensive investments in a developing countries, especially in textile production create a dusty work environment for workers, and those workers are from the low socio-economic group and need special safety concern. Objective: This study was aimed at assessing the prevalence of respiratory symptoms and associated factors among textile factories workers in Bahir Dar, Amhara region, Ethiopia, 2015. Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional study design was employed among randomly selected 384 textile workers using pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire. We stratified workers by their working section in the textile industries. Then the proportional numbers of workers were selected from each working section of the factory by using a random number generator. The identification number of workers from each factory was used for selection. The data were checked, coded, and entered to Epi-info Version 7 and exported to the Statistical Package for Social Science Version 20 for further analysis. Both bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to identify associated factors. Variables having a P ⩽.2 were fitted to multivariate logistic regression so as to assess the presence and strength of association with the respiratory symptom. Variables having a P