Factors affecting infection control at health facilities in Kumi district, Uganda.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Despite the efforts of Kumi district health team to provide continuous medical education (CME) to the health workers, rehabilitate, equip and provide supplies to the health facilities, infection control (IC) at the health facilities continued to deteriorate. OBJECTIVES: To determine the factors affecting infection control at health facilities so as to enable the DHT lay appropriate strategies to ensure proper infection control at health facilities in the district. METHODOLOGY: A cross sectional study was conducted in march 2002 in all the 29 health facilities in Kumi district using quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Stratified simple random sampling was used to identify the 161 respondents who were interviewed using anonymous and confidential questionnaires. RESULTS: Most respondents were females (75.8%), had attained secondary education (75.2%) were experienced (75%) and had formal medical training (79%). The respondents with adequate and good attitude in IC were 75.2% and 93.2% respectively. A Minority of respodents performed satisfactorily (40.3%) had received CME (35.4%) and technical support supervision (26%) on IC. The majority of health facilities were understaffed (62.1%) with no enabling supplies and facilities and hospitals had no infection control committees. Respondents with formal medical training and CME were more knowledgeable on IC than those without (85.8% versus 35.3%, p=0.024 and 96.5% versus 3.5%, p=0.011 respectively). The female were more knowledgeable than males (77% versus 69%, p=0.003). These differences in knowledge were statistically significant as reflected in the p-values. Respondents with good attitude and adequate knowledge on IC performed more satisfactorily than those without (47.1% versus 4.8%, p=0.007 and 52.1% versus 22.5%, p=0.040 respectively). These differences in performance were statistically significant. CONCLUSION: The study revealed that infection control at health facilities in Kumi distict was substantially inadequate and was affected by lack of enabling supplies, facilities, insufficient CME and technical support supervision. RECOMMENDATIONS to DHT and MOH Should; Strengthen technical support supervision, provision of guidelines, encourage and assist health workers to have CME Provide enabling supplies, equipment, facilities and staffing to the health units Ensure that all hospitals in the district reactivate infection control committees.