Health-Promoting Behaviours for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention among healthcare workers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract

Background: A survey done in Tanzania a decade ago indicated high levels of risk behaviours among the Tanzanian population. However, did not specifically focus on Health-Promoting Behaviours (HPB) among health professionals. HPBs are known to be risk factors for Non-Communicable Diseases. This study examined Health-Promoting Behaviours practices among health care professionals in private and public hospitals in Ilala District, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was adopted, and a simple random sampling technique was employed to draw 350 respondents of different health professionals (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists and nutritionists) from 3 public and 2 private hospitals in Ilala district, Dar es Salaam.  We collected socio-demographic characteristics, health promotion behaviours and practices and BMI. We presented categorical variables as frequencies and proportions and compared them using the Chi-square test. A p-value < 0.05 was regarded as independently associated with this outcome variable. Logistic regression was used to model the relationship between health promotion behaviours and working experience, working station and health professional cadres.   Findings Out of 350 healthcare professionals, 53.4% were females. Median age was 33 years (IQR = 27, 41). Most participants were Doctors (42.6%), followed by Nurses (34.6%), Pharmacists (16%), Physiotherapists (4.9%), and Nutritionists (2%). Only 1.4% of healthcare workers observed the WHO’s recommended 8 hours of sleep. Only 42.1% of healthcare workers do physical exercise for more than 150 minutes in a week. Analysis of BMI concluded that 1.4 % of studied healthcare workers were ‘underweight’, 41.1% had a ‘healthy’ status, 42% were ‘overweight’, and 15.4% were ‘obese’. Significantly, only doctors had 4.79 odds [aOR (95% CI) =4.79 (0.62 – 1.76), p = 0.04] of practising HPB compared to other professional cadres. Conclusions: This study highlights a significant knowledge-to-practice gap among healthcare workers in Tanzania. Medical literacy effectively prevents substance abuse (smoking and alcohol), but it fails to overcome the structural barriers to healthy eating, sleep, and physical activity. The prevalence of overweight and obesity, alongside the poor dietary habits observed in urban settings, suggests that occupational and economic environments rather than a lack of knowledge are the primary drivers of health behaviour. Furthermore, the significantly better behaviours among doctors compared to other cadres suggest that while clinical exposure motivates change, a unified, system-wide approach is missing for the broader workforce. Keywords: Health-Promoting Behaviours, Healthcare workers, non-communicable diseases and Tanzania